where a blade was sunk some time ago
by Mira-Jade
Summary: "And sometimes, the Pit would give something back – something stronger than that which had been fed flailing into the bitter earth." Talia rises. Bane follows.
1. by the hilt

"**where a blade was sunk some time ago"**

**Genre**: Drama, Romance  
**Rating**: PG-13  
**Time Frame**: Pre-Canon - TDKR  
**Characters**: Talia al-Ghul | Miranda Tate/Bane, Ra's al-Ghul/Melisande, Bruce Wayne, Others

**Summary**: "And sometimes, the pits would give something back – something stronger than that which had been fed flailing into the bitter earth." Talia rises. Bane follows.

**Notes**: I know, I know, I know - I have a half a dozen other projects that you guys are waiting for, BUT, my muse was smitten and I just had to write. _I had to._ For all intents and purposes, this fic is an exorcism to the tenth degree - the need for which I fully blame on the sheer _magnificence_ of Tom Hardy's voice and the _brilliance_ that is Nolan's mind. Thank-you _feelings_, now let me go.

On a more relevant note, this story will be told in five lengthy parts, each skipping through time - from the Pit to Gotham and everywhere in between. I hope you guys enjoy this ride as much as I enjoyed penning it. :)

**Disclaimer**: Nothing is mine, but for the words.

* * *

** "where a blade was sunk some time ago"**_  
_by Mira_Jade

* * *

**Part I: **"by the hilt"

* * *

The rains were rare in the desert, but when they came, they came with a vengeance.

She could feel the storms as they built and gathered, even down as they were in the bowels of the earth. The circular walls of the Pit grew damp before the storm; the walls beaded with fat drops of condensation, allowed to sweat with the storm pressing down as they were not able to when the sun was at its peak in the sky. The air around them turned heavy and moist as the barren earth inhaled, ready to snatch at the rain with greedy fingers in its desperation to be full. When the rain finally did fall, the wet scent of the storm was clean next to the musty and stale scent that Talia had always known. So, she tilted her head, and tried to hold the rain in her nose, in her mouth and on her skin. The moisture made her tongue stick to the back of her teeth. The sensation was foreign to her, akin to how she felt after sipping at water, but not drinking enough to quench her thirst. The rain fell and fell and _fell_ and the earth took what the sky could give for days until the dry ground was sated. It would take until flowers would bloom, lingering for only a heartbeat until the desert closed its hands as teeth over the new growth, cutting away both roots and blossoms, stealing what never should have thrived in the first place.

When she asked, her friend whispered of different flowers, their names anointed by long and rolling syllables, all of which he had learned from his life before the Pit. (A life she only knew about in passing, as shadowy as her own story). She, a true child of the Pit, had never seen a flower past a picture she had once seen in one of the Doctor's dusty books. Even the colors and shapes Bane used to explain the blooms to her were past her ability to comprehend at times. The desert, the dead earth, alive with blankets of colors and shapes and scents? The idea was as silly to Talia as her friend's fairytales - all were nonsense whispers, made for that time right before sleeping and dreaming . . .

So, she said as such, her nose held high in the air as she remembered her mother doing when she disagreed with the doctor who had once been their protector in the prison. Arrogantly, Talia called him on what she perceived as a falsehood, and Bane had chuckled and pushed her away from where she had leaned in close to convey the severity of his actions.

_Someday_, he had whispered to her after convincing to her of his sincerity, _you will see them for yourself._ _And you will know more names than even I, little one. You will be able to name the things that grow away from the dark._ But she was young, and the distant concepts of _more_ and _away _were surreal to her. They were distant things to her. Her, who had never known anything more than the walls of their prison and the dust of their cell. Her, who thought of safety only in the heavy rise and fall of her friend's chest against her back. At night, she slept tucked by his side, close enough so that when she moved a hand underneath the bundled up rag they called a pillow, she could feel the knife they kept there, waiting. It was a protection, a precaution, and she did not shrink at the touch of steel simply because she could not remember a time when she slept any other way.

At the thought, she remembered sleeping as such with another. With her mother, the arms around her had not been the solid stone of the earth, but rather something soft and comforting – the feeling of home and love in such a barren, forgotten place. Distantly, she remembered watching the rain from her mother's side . . . only months ago, would it have been? Melisande had taught the concept of time her, back when the warlord's daughter had carved the days into the walls with her blunted nails, her hands no longer satin soft, but callused and desert roughened. Bane had since said that there was no use for time in the Pit, and so Talia had stopped keeping track. The marks on the wall were faded now, merely barren ghosts to remind her that her mother was something more than just a warm memory her mind would send for when the shadows grew too thick. More and more often when she tried to call her mother to mind, she found that the memories were seemingly buried beneath sand. She thought that the sand over her memories was Time as her mother had described it, and she tried to tell Bane so once. His smile in return had been a sad thing, etched into his face, and Talia had not tried to speak of it again.

That night, they slept very close to the edge of their cell, close enough so that she could feel the rain as it dripped down the bars and wetted her blanket, soaking it through. They were high on the walls, where few others cared to go unless they had a rope about their body, and down below, she knew the Pit would be flooded, water collecting when the ground was too tired to even soak in what it needed most. She could feel the water on her skin, and she watched curiously as it beaded, catching the light from the storm above and reflecting it back. They had put out their rusted metal cups and water skins to catch the rain, and the taste of the water was sweet even past the bite of the rusted metal.

Above them, thunder boomed, fit to shake the walls of their cell, and her breath caught in her chest at the sound. Her heart raced, seemingly fit to escape if it wished to try, and she looked up to catch a shadow of her protector in her vision, letting the shape of him calm her.

"It is such a big sound," she finally said, not quite sure how to put her thoughts into words, but wishing to try. In response, Bane gave a deep chuckle that she could feel against her back. It rumbled in her bones like the thunder above. "How is Above big enough to hold such a thing?" she asked curiously.

"Above is large enough to hold the storm and even more, little one," amusement was present in his tone, curbing a bit as he took to explaining the things she never had a chance to understand. "It holds storms and seas and skies, and still has room enough for us to walk about across the ground."

"It sounds angry," Talia finally said, curling her fingers into the arms that held her. Her heart skipped in her chest, a missed step.

"Even the skies wish to scream at times," Bane shrugged, and while his words were sad, she could hear a smile shaped against his voice. "It cannot hold itself up forever without the wish to tell the world below of its pain."

That she could understand, she finally gave as she pillowed into his chest even more, searching out his heartbeat. A part of her thought that she held the sky's screams, held _thunder_, in her very bones. It was a knowing deeper than hunger or thirst or curiosity about the sky above them. It was a knowing that ached; that made her throat thick as it was when she remembered her mother, when she remembered the reason that they slept with steel rather than softness, and held a blade hidden to the waking world for protection rather than aggression.

That part of her wanted to scream, wanted to match the sky above them, but instead she was silent. She held it in. She let it hold and heat her bones until she was an extension of the storm above. She burned. But the heat waited.

"Someday," Bane's voice rumbled in her ears in answer to her thoughts, as if he were able to read her very mind. "But not yet."

And so she inhaled, and sucked in the black feeling that she had been letting gnaw on her bones. She opened her eyes, and the dark, which still frightened her at times, seemed to claim her as one of its own – claim her as it had claimed her friend. Her friend, who seemed to have no form but shadow at times, whom the very night had begotten, he was as real and solid to her as the sky and the storm beyond. She understood the thunder, racing across the heavens and searching for a way out before it was swallowed by its own might. She understood the thunder, and while she could not see the lightning, she could see the glow it made. She could see the shadows it threw, deeper than those left by the sunlight. She stretched her hand through the bars as if to catch the light, and felt the rain hit her skin instead.

Behind her, her friend's breathing was deep and even, echoing in her ears as the thunder above, and to her child's mind he was as powerful as the storm itself. Her _Baldassare_, her protector.

It was not happiness that filled her in that moment, not in the way most would describe the word. But it was a burning thing deep inside of her that kept her alive. It anchored her.

And for that moment she was content.

.

.

When the rain passed, the walls of the pit remained wet for days. The men around them called it a _monsoon_, and Talia rolled the new word on her tongue as Bane whispered to her about climates and the cycles of the earth. The bottom of the prison was flooded, and the vermin who normally stayed to the floor levels came higher and higher, up to where Talia liked to think of the Pit as her own. Bane kept her close that day, close enough so that the men did not know if the child walked with the man, or if she was simply a flicker of his shadow.

They did not eat that day – the bread was thrown down from above, but immediately claimed by the water below, spoiling it. The splashing sounds that the men made as they grappled for the least sodden pieces reached Talia's ears from her place on the wall. The sounds pulled at her stomach, even as she ate a nearly rotten piece of fruit that Bane had saved for her from the day before. Carefully, wasting nothing, she licked the juice from her fingers as next to her, Bane went without so that she could grow strong.

The stones were slick and hard to grasp, but that did not stop their routine for the day. Like clockwork, Bane made her stare at the stones, looking between the handholds and the footholds, until under his direction she could pick out paths and sure ways through the decaying brick and mortar with her own eyes. He showed her how to see which ones would break, which ones would hold. Still in his shadow, she scurried over the stones closest, building the muscles in her small arms and quenching the fear that every creature had of falling.

_But you were born in the rock, in the deep, and should they not carry what they have fathered as their own? _Bane pointed out when her brow rose and she questioned with her eyes.

_Still, I know fear_, she said. It was a hot thing in her bones, scorching next to the cold flame that defined her very being – a flame that was stronger than hunger or thirst or longing or _fear_.

His smile was hidden behind the fabric he had drawn over his face, but still she could still see it from where it crinkled his eyes. Always they betrayed his thoughts, and she found that as time passed, she could read them as easily as she could read the stones on the wall.

_Little one_, he said, and his words were born away, lost to the open air and the sky above, _that fear is what will keep you alive._

.

.

They had very little to call their own in the depths of the earth, but on the nights that they had enough to build a fire, Talia felt very rich indeed.

The rain had cooled the earth, and the desert nights, which had already been crisp and breezy things, were now fit to chill. Talia, with her tiny limbs, hollow boned and seemingly glass-like (like a bird ready to fly away, Bane had always teased), felt the bite of the night in the deepest parts of her.

Normally, they were able to save enough to build a fire once every few turns of the moon. Kindling was sparse, and the hunting for it was normally a savage thing, but between her quick hands and Bane's severe presence, they managed to gather enough to light one rather regularly in the colder parts of the desert season.

Once he had said that they would have a fire that night, Talia walked regally around their cell, a wooden bowl on her head that she called a crown, and a rusted metal rod in her hand that she called her scepter. Holding her head haughtily in the air, she waved her hand like a queen and commanded that a blaze be built, fit to reach the heavens. Bane had snorted at her antics, but he still bowed in deference to her, playing along and letting her be a child in a place that no childhood should ever be spent. He teased her about having too much blue blood when her imperious demeanor came too easily, but she pressed a finger to the vein in her wrist and said that it looked red to her.

There was laughter in moments like that – moments that she will someday look back on and yearn for, if not only for their simplicity and peace. There was laughter, and there was a sense of triumph too – pride and exultation over the fact that they were able to build a light away from the sky that reigned haughtily above them all. The sun they could never possible hope to rise higher towards, but this small little fire, coaxed and brought to life in the dead of the earth? Yes. It was a tiny piece of hope, but it was _theirs_.

With her mother, this had been an indulgence that they had rarely taken a part in – the doctor was too addled by his morphine to assist them, and Talia had not strayed from her mother's cell unless it was for food. One of the few times Talia could remember spending with her mother by a fire's glow had been when Bane himself had gotten them enough scrap to start a fire for them, and Melisande had set the kindle aflame with sheer determination and whispered hints from the cell beyond theirs. But that had been a long time ago, before Talia had called him _Baldassare _and he had called her his own.

Now, it was a lesson as well as an indulgence as he talked her through the process. He held the flint and steel in his hand and showed her how to make a spark. He taught her about oxygen and things that fed the flames to keep them going. It was a balance, always a balance, he had said - weighing what they were willing to give in order to kept the fire fed. It was a balance, what they would give for the heat that would be granted to them in return. _The fire is always hungry_, Bane said, and her stomach rumbled – a reflex to his words that had a laugh flexing his chest, not quite making it to his mouth.

Talia closed her eyes as she settled in by the fire. Beyond them, she heard the sounds of the Pit at night – the rattling of chained men, the pitter patter of rats scurrying against the stone, and the low drone of whispers, the muttering of men driven mad by the years. She opened her eyes, and saw the tongues of the small fire as they pushed away the shadows. Stretching, she watched the colors shift, their own little phoenix held captive on the earth, and she said, "I know exactly how it feels."

.

.

In the days following, another man tried to make the jump to freedom. It was to be expected, Bane said, the rain and the smell of growing things from beyond having lit a perverse desperation in all of their veins for the world beyond. Hope was a poison, festering in the blood, and there were always men who wished to bleed that ichor away from their veins.

The men of the prison chanted as the man climbed - _rise, rise, rise up! - _in an ancient tongue that had no use except for in this forgotten place. Bane did not watch the man ascend, and Talia instead watched her friend's eyes as they stared up, unblinking at the ceiling.

Together, they listened. Talia's heart thundered as if she were the one climbing. The chanting rose in time with the man until it broke upon itself, a crescendo, at that final leap. And then, there was the familiar sound of the rope as it snapped back, and the even more familiar sound of screaming. Screaming, and the booing of a thousand men for the lone man who had failed to fly.

And Bane exhaled, letting go a breath she had not known he had been holding. Talia echoed the sound, her small lungs not able to completely mimic his.

It was for this reason, she reflected as the broken man was helped from the rope, that Talia rarely looked to the sky. It was just a patch of blue above, and she had more real things - more solid things to hope in next to her. She thought that over carefully as they sat and watched the doctor in the cell next to theirs go about setting the screaming man's broken ribs. She knew not if the man screamed from despair or pain, and she did not bother to divine the difference from him. Both were marks on the soul that festered and rotted over time.

Bane had yet to do so much as even glance over. His breath was deep and even in his chest. He was laying on his back, staring up without blinking. His hands were folded, crossed over his chest. They rose and fell in time with his breathing.

And Talia tilted her head, curious and considering. "Have you ever tried to make the jump?" she asked, her voice whispered as if she were asking him to divulge a secret.

A moment passed. Talia counted out her heartbeats, timing them with his breathing. "Once, long ago," he answered, the words hollow on his tongue. "And I did not get much farther than that man right there."

She processed that, and nodded, the knowledge troubling to her – the knowledge that her savior had failed to do what he was determined that she could do . . . For a moment, she wished to ask him what his pain was like. She wanted to know if he still had scars from his climb or if the frustration of failure was more bitter to him.

Instead, she bit her tongue and asked, "Why do you not try again?"

He glanced over at her. She could see the corner of his gaze from where she sat. "I have no reason to try again, little one," he answered simply, a faint undercurrent of amusement in his voice.

She nodded, shaking her head very slowly as she turned his words over in her mind.

A heartbeat passed. Another and another. The man beyond them no longer screamed, but still he whimpered, speaking in a language that Talia could not understand. But she knew his words as well as her own.

Someday, she reasoned out silently, she would make the jump to freedom, succeeding where grown men could not, and then she would not be the anchor shackling her friend to such a hopeless and barren place.

Talia would rise. Bane would then follow.

.

.

She thinks that she has passed eight years when she holds a blade in her hands, not for the sake of protection, but with the wish to take blood.

She did not know if it was the exact day that her mother's death would have fallen on. She only knew that it was the cool part of the year, still warm during the day but near freezing at night. She knew the time of the year by the sickness in the air, the coughing lungs and the retching throats.

That morning, she awakened before her protector, and tip toed quietly to the other edge of the cell so as to not awaken him. She spent the morning on her knees, her eyes closed as she breathed deeply, in and out. One by one, she called her memories to her, reliving them as fresh and vivid as the day they had been set into her mind. Her fingers shook, adrenaline keeping them from being still.

Beyond, the men of the Pit were just moving, awoken by the morning sun, ever bright and teasing above. She could hear the sounds of a dozen languages, curses and whispers and the broken mumbling of battered men. She heard the jangling of chains. And she closed her eyes and knew a sour taste in her mouth, a fierce burning in her bones as she thought of those who still walked where Melisande had been forced to stillness.

The men who had led the attack had been executed, the guards who held a laxed hold on the Pit and its working not tolerating such a crime, but every man who had a hand against Melisande's body had not been brought to justice. There were too many, and those in power cared little about one woman who had been stupid enough to condemn herself to such a hell in the first place. They had considered justice done, and Talia alone had been left to seethe with a righteous anger deep in her bones.

Even still, Talia's memories of that day were vivid, too fast things. She remembered the feel of the day more than the actuality of it – her mind having taken the adrenaline soaked images and giving her the sound of screams, the flash of dull colors swimming together like a muddy ocean – the sound of Melisande yelling for her to _run _as Talia had instead stood her ground and pounded her little fists on the back closest to her and yelled with all of her might.

She remembered strong arms carrying her away, and how she had fought, her scream an unholy thing in her mouth as she was torn from the mob . . . She remembered the look of near relief in Melisande's eyes, gratitude and acceptance and _pain _before Talia had been tucked into her savior's chest and she had seen no more . . .

Still she remembered the faces of the men. She remembered each and every one. She could not escape them - not when they still walked the bottom of the pit, their eyes remembering as she remembered; smirking and promising as she seethed and simmered in her anger.

And one in particular walked before her. She knew him not only by the shape of his face – all sharp angles and hungry eyes, a slopping nose and thin hair – but by the necklace he wore. On the leather twine he had knotted about his neck, there were a dozen tokens – rat skulls and bird bones from the corpses that had at times been thrown into the Pit. Some of the adornments were human bones, as well – the hollow bone of a finger here, the tip of a rib there, Talia had gazed at the macabre collection and _pulled_ when she had tried to push the mass away from her mother, and it had not given under her meager strength.

She had watched him, over the past year (at least, what felt like a year to her), charting his steps in the morning, noting where he sat and waited out the high noon hours, watching who he talked to and lingered about with at night. She knew his steps, and no longer would he take one more where he had taken from her mother hers.

It was still an easy thing for her to slip through the bars, Bane's knife in her sleeve as she looked back over her shoulder one last time to make sure her protector was still sleeping.

She inhaled, willing stillness into her quivering limbs. All was clear.

And she made it not even steps towards the man with the bone necklace before a strong hand was pulling her away, and she looked up with surprise to see the face of her friend glaring down at her.

"Do you wish to die, little one?" he asked, his warm voice raspy, the lilt of his accent twisted with his anger.

And Talia felt her heart pound, even as she glared up at him. "I wish not to," she answered sullenly. "But it is not my death that I had thought of."

It was not good enough. Bane shook his head, his grip strong on her arm as he pushed her in the opposite direction of where she had been going. Talia resisted, standing tall. "That man is near three times your size and knows more of killing than you should ever need to know. What makes you think that you would come out superior?"

She shook her head, holding her arms straight with her hands fisted. They shook. She could not keep them still as within her chest her heart pounded and screamed, and her lungs ached from the cold flame that was consuming them. She could not _breathe_, and the tears behind her eyes burned her. They would not _let her be_.

She tried to answer, but found that she could not. Her words were caught in her throat as she remembered the stories that he had told her. She remembered the one of the Danish prince and his father's ghost. _Avenge me, avenge me_, the spirit had cried, and Talia had not been able to understand why the prince had stood so still for the rest of the play . . . He had stayed still while the spirit had wept, and Talia had thought of her mother gone and _hated_ like only the shadows of the Pit could teach one to hate . . .

She would be no Hamlet, standing still. She wished for blood.

She clenched her fists, keeping the cold flame inside of her down. She kept it locked inside, even as it built and bit and clawed at her flesh from the inside out . . .

"He does not deserve to live," Talia finally said in a low voice, one that seethed. She said it as if that should have meant everything, as if that should have assured her of victory in any fight. "I cannot bear seeing his face . . ."

The hard lines about Bane's face softened. This time, when he led her away, his coaxing was gentle. She followed, having to concentrate to keep her feet from stumbling.

"Justice is not always a faithful mistress," Bane said, his voice weary. "Just because you have the right of it does not mean that you would have come out of that fight alive."

"I cannot not try," she whispered, falling into his shadow. In the wake of her hate and her anger, she was so very tired. It was hard to stay upright without the hate inside of her giving her strength.

"Then never stop," Bane said after a long moment, and she looked up, confused.

"Baldassare?" she whispered his name, the name he had had before the inmates of their hell had dubbed him as he was, and he shook his head, waiting until they were safe in the shadows of their cell again to speak.

He let her go, but still she stayed close, standing still while he paced, like a jungle cat too long kept in a small space. "I will teach you," he finally said. "I will teach you how to move, how to think; how to strike and carry yourself, and someday you can take your vengeance with the means to walk away standing at the end."

She felt her heart rise in her throat, remembering how he looked in a crowd of men. How they cowered before him, how he fought like a serpent roused from its basket, too quick and too lethal with a bite of venom to his blows. To move the same . . .

But still, her brow furrowed. "Why does this trouble you?" she asked, reading the planes of his face, the stories they told. "You are sad to do such a thing."

Again, his mouth quirked at the corners. It was rueful. "In any other life, these are skills you would never need. This is a dark place for one so small, and you deserve not of it."

A heartbeat. She tilted her head, all curiosity again as she watched him pace. She had no answer for him, only silence, and finally, he ceased his movements and looked at her with a critical eye.

"This is your first lesson, child," he said, his voice strangely solemn, his eyes carefully serene. "Never attack anything that you have no hope of defeating. At least, not by rushing into a fight. Watch it, instead. Learn from it. Follow it, and use your strongest weapon." He tapped the side of her head with his first two fingers. "The stronger fighter does not always win, little one, remember that."

And she listened. And she learned.

Later that night, she awakened to see Bane returning from some solitary errand. His stride was whisper soft as he let himself back into their cell, the shadows of the deep part of the night nearly obscuring him completely. He paused for a moment when he was on their side of the bars, resting his head against them as if he was weary. When he made his way back over to their cot, Talia sat up and blearily rubbed at her eyes, fighting the sleep from her mind. When she tilted her head and questioned, he held out his hand with a gift – the gift of a necklace, dotted with bone fragments and once living things.

She was suddenly awake and aware in the darkness. It was hard to see in the blackness of the Pit, but she had long since become used to the absence of light. She looked at him, searching, but there was no blood on his hands. There was no blood on the necklace. She still held his knife in her sleeve.

_But how?_ he saw her questions in her eyes, and in answer he placed a hand on her shoulder, very close to her neck. She felt her skin tingle in awareness, but she felt no fear. Instead, the hand on her skin was a comfort, a warm weight.

And Bane watched the way she relaxed against him, boneless and yielding until something shadowed crossed over his eyes. "Sometimes," he whispered, his voice very heavy, "Justice does not exist . . . and so, it must be forged with your own hands. This is for you, little one."

She nodded at his words, holding the bone strewn cord close to her as Bane's hand fell from her shoulder. A part of her wished to burn the thing, to never see it again. But another part of her held the sharp parts close, and felt them push against her skin. Her heart thundered, even though there was no foe to face. The cold flame at the core of her was oddly still, oddly sated in that moment, and Talia fell back to sleep with her hate at rest. She slept peacefully, without dreams.

And somewhere else, a world away, a boy sank to the ground and stared at the bloody pearls that littered the alleyway. Orphans were made and used and battered every day, but this boy looked at the wreckage around him, and swore a vow that hooked into the soft parts of his being, making them hard. He looked up as Talia looked forward, and where a life ended, a legend was once again set, ready to rise.

.

.

The summer comes, and the season was hot and heavy on their shoulders.

It was the hottest summer that Talia could remember, so hot that even the deepest of shadows in the Pit held not even the slightest bit of relief from the heat. She sweated more than she thought was possible, her body left weak under the weight of the sun, not having that much moisture to work with in the beginning. Many men died from the heat that season, their bodies already weak from prior sicknesses and a weakness more deadly than any of the body – the weakness of _apathy_. Apathy was a more silent killer than any other in their prison, a slow and lethal knife that crept up unaware until there was no way to pass by its blade unscathed.

The sun was at its highest point in the sky for the day, the light of its rays flooding anywhere and everywhere with its empty heat as it reigned haughtily from its omnipotent cradle in the sky. Normally, this time of the day brought her lessons – both the spoken and the mental given their time when it was too bright to learn the physical, the art of moving and stalking and striking. Her mind expanded under the tutelage of her teacher, absorbing everything from the movements of the stars to the shape of the world and the art of language and its use. Some of the skills taught to her she found perplexing, like those of mathematics and the sciences. But Bane's knowledge was vast and his teaching was through. Anything that he could teach to her by tracing a stick in the sand, by scratching stone against stone, was driven into her mind until the facts and figures were as rote as breathing to her. The doctor in the cell next to theirs gave what books he had, and with their words, Talia learned to read and write, muddling through the odd assortment of languages he had in their written form until she understood the flick of a pen, the turn of a scholar's hand. It was a slow work, filling her mind, but in their world of nothingness, time was something that they had ample fill of.

During the bright parts of the day, he saw that her mind was forged, but by the shadowed parts of the night, her body grew as well. In the twilight hours, when they could not be seen but as for shadows, Bane taught her how to move. The Pit was not absent its fill of those who knew the warring arts, and past warlords and former mercenaries were a dime a dozen in their prison. Over the years, Bane had learned well the art of combat and its ways, and he passed his knowledge on to her. She moved well when her body was fit to strike, he finally gave, his compliments as spare as anything else in the Pit. She was quick and little, like a bird darting for prey in the high grasses. Over time, she found that she liked the feel of a knife in her hands more than anything else, but learned that she could cope equally well with a staph or thrown projectiles. Bane himself liked a more direct approach with his opponents – his hands knowing the tender places of the neck and the points in the spine that made it easy to snap. But, such brute strength would never belong to her, and a more elegant means of defense was called for.

But the day was hot, too hot for movement - even the movement of tongues, and rather than attend to her lessons, they laid down in the darkest parts of their cell, trying to find an escape from the heat. Bane laid on his back, closest to the light so that she could curl up in the shadow he threw, escaping the sun and its rays. Still she could feel the heat from beyond him. Her skin was dry and brittle, and her lips were chapped to the point that they bled when she pressed them together. Already, Bane had given her twice as much water as she would normally have in a day. Still she knew thirst. She licked her lips, and tasted copper and salt. Her stomach ached with the motion. As always, Talia ignored her hunger and her thirst, and instead concentrated on being still, very still.

They didn't need words on days like these, he as comfortable with the silence as she, but after a while she felt her limbs grow restless no matter how much she willed herself to be otherwise. It was hard to stand still, even if moving left her hot and tired. She worked her mouth more, opening and closing it again, and her tongue moved sluggishly in reply, thick and dry against her teeth. When the blood was gone, she tasted dust when she breathed.

"The men call you Bane," she finally said, her Spanish rolling on her tongue – for a language was learned only by use, and she had much to practice. "Why?"

He shrugged, his shoulders lifting against the dirt. "I broke a man's neck once when he tried to take rations that were not his own, and he cursed me as such as he died. The name stuck." His answer was in the same tongue, and she felt her lips quirk up at the sound. The dips and the slurs of the language sounded different when mixed with his normal lisp, and the sound fascinated her. She blinked as she remembered the time before her mother's death – remembered the man who would pass her figs and dates through the bars of the cell, whole loaves of bread and strips of dried meat, too, when he could.

"Did anyone not want to know what you were called before?" she asked, curious.

Again he rolled his shoulders, all a slumbering bear shaking off the attentions of a fly. "What for? Men come and go, they live and they die and keep to themselves in places like this. It makes it harder to stick a blade into a man's side when you know his name."

She crinkled her nose at the shape of his words, trying to find the language in her mind. _Arabic?_ she puzzled out, or one of its many forms? _Farsi_, she finally decided on, the tongue more suited to his mouth than Spanish. He had drawn maps in the sand to show her the broad places of the world and how they connected, and while the concept was boggling to Talia, the names stayed with her, the facts and figures in her mind something the Pit could not take from her no matter how broadly it dangled the sunlight above.

"Still, it is a silly name," she said, switching again – this time to Hungarian, she liking how the language popped on her tongue. She liked the shape of the syllables it made.

He snorted, the sound amused as it passed his lips. _What kind of a name is Bane?_ she had asked with narrowed eyes, on one of the days following her mother's death. Back then she had been weary and not quick to trust, and finally her words had drawn a roll of eyes from her savior and he asked, _What kind of a name is Talia, little one? _The snort of laughter that had followed from her lips had been as unexpected to him as it had been to her.

He had told her that his name was Baldassare, on the eve of that same day, but she did not dare repeat it aloud except on the rarest of occasions. The name was hers and hers alone, and she did not like to even share it with the air of the Pit. It was something sacred in an unholy place, and she would not breathe it aloud until she walked the earth above. Then, perhaps, she would consider sharing the name with the land around her.

She tilted her head, and thought, _Baldassare, who was called Bane, and Talia, the child of Melisande and the Demon's Head_. She liked the sound of their names together. Quirking the corner of her mouth, she twiddled her fingers with a loose bit of string on her shirt and said her next turn of thought out loud, "What did you do to come to this place?" The question was an old point of curiosity to her – something that she had heard the men of the Pit theorize about often enough, though none actually knew the truth for certain.

"Beg pardon?" he responded. _French_, she picked up on his words. It was a tongue he had not taught her, but it had been one her mother had known and spoken to her in bits and pieces. Talia closed her eyes, and tried to remember the rolling vowels as she shaped them into words on her tongue.

"You?" she repeated, her speech made simple and choppy with the unfamiliar language. But she liked the face he made when she surprised him, for as long as it was there before he tucked it away. "Why are you here?"

"I am here because it is too bloody hot outside of the shadows to do anything else." Back to Farsi then, his deep voice rumbling in amusement.

Talia rolled her eyes and propped herself up on her elbow to look at his face. His body blocked out the light from beyond, keeping her cool in his shadow. The sun greeted her when she raised her eyes over the rise of his chest, and she squinted, trying to find his gaze. "My mother was here because she loved," she said, sharing her tale (thought it was commonly known) in hopes of one in return. She slipped to her native tongue for that – a rolling language spoken from the throat and considered ancient in most parts of the world. "My father was not meant to have her, but married her still he did, and for that love he was sentenced to die here. Melisande took his place after paying the guards, and he knew not of her sacrifice – he knows not still. He thought her dead, slain by her father's hand."

A snort escaped Bane at the tale. "Rather a man would have taken such a sentence than a woman. He may still be alive; he could have survived this place." English, she knew that tongue – the one he was most insistent that she learn, for its use was never ending.

"But then you would not have me here," she said, her voice lilting imperiously, her English heavy and accented in contrast to his. "And then where would you be?"

"I would be enjoying the silence a considerable deal more," he said gruffly, reaching out to push at her forehead, turning her searching eyes away. She made a small 'umph' noise as she fell back on the ground.

She popped back up again, this time nearly leaning over him in her quest to make out his gaze. "The doctor said that you were born in a place far beneath the surface of the ground, not far from here, and when you were found you were thrown down here with the rest of the shadow people whom the men of light knew not what to do with."

A snort. "Is that what he said?"

Her head bobbed, nodding. "The men though, they say that you are a murderer – that you have killed hundreds, blackened whole villages and towns with the might of your name."

A raised brow. "Do you think that is true?" he asked, looking over to face her for the first. He reached over, and rested a large hand on her shoulder, his first finger very close to her neck. Talia merely smiled, and leaned into his touch.

"Not without a reason," she said impishly, her eyes mischievous as she reached up to cover his hand with her own.

At that he laughed, the sound low and rusty, a little heard thing in their place of screams and mad, mad whispers. Talia smiled at it.

"Others say that you were lowered down with the princess," and here her smile turned slightly, her voice dipping as she once again slipped into her own tongue. "That you came here to protect her where Ra's al-Ghul could not. That is why . . . that is why you saved her child when you could not save her. And that is why you even still will not give her child to anyone else."

That one was a newer whisper, one that slithered and accused and dripped with insinuation about his relationship with both of the Demonhead's family. Talia cared little for it.

And Bane's mouth twisted, he hearing the whispers as easily as she. Sobered, she settled in on the cool earth once more, falling silent as she thought. Around them, the whispers of the Pit were quiet, the heat of the day coaxing even the most determined of men to sleep. Talia closed her eyes for a moment, but the shadows over her gaze did little to fight away the glare of the day.

She felt more than heard as the man beside her inhaled. His breath was drawn deep from his lungs. "And what do you think I am here for, little one?" he spoke her tongue, the accent fluid in his mouth. Talia hummed in the back of her throat at the sound of it.

"I think that you have always been here," she answered without opening her eyes. "I think that you were born here like me . . . You were put here so that we could lift each other up . . . You understand what it is like to have shadow and stone for a father . . . and that is the reason why you saved me. You could not do anything else."

Her eyes remained closed, but the light beyond them was too bright for a true shadow, and she could see as the mass of him moved, sitting half upright in order to look down on her. She imagined that the look he wore was curious, like she was when he spoke of the world beyond their own.

So she let her smile hold on her lips as she turned into his shadow, seeking out relief from the heat of the day. Above them, the sun's rays beat down, but Talia turned away from them, and found an escape . . . at least, for a little while.

.

.

Time passed, and its fleeing presence felt like sand against her skin. Time was a thief, and with its passing, Talia found that certain things became lost to her. Things like the exact shape of her mother's hand on her back; things like the exact syllables of the tales Melisande had whispered to her of her father. Other things were harder to forget, try as time may have had to take them from her. Things like the shape of Bane's eyes the first time she had caught him looking curiously at her from across her mother's cell; things like the sound of Melisande's screams as she was torn apart.

Now, beneath the memory of screams, she could hear the certainty of whispers. They crawled like ants upon her skin, settling and itching like sand and grit did as it built in her hair. The men whispered and speculated and _wondered_, and no matter how tight Bane tied the bindings around her chest, she was starting to show the potential for a woman's frame on a girl's body. He still called her _boy _in public, and the morphine soaked doctor would swear to her gender as the one who delivered her – out of a faint sense of protection or out guilt over her mother's death, Talia knew not, but it did not matter, for few listened. Few cared.

She was small and fresh and young in a world of decaying things, and Bane's shadow over her own would only protect her for so long.

She started bleeding in her twelfth year, and it became harder and harder to hide who and what she was from the greedy eyes around them. They were careful, they had to be, but they were not infallible, and it only took one one mistake to bring the inevitable to them.

It was morning, with all of the prisoners milling on the bottom of the Pit like insects, crawling over and about each other for the best portions of the food that had been thrown down from above. While she gleaned their share, Bane had turned to watch a group of men who had gathered right beyond them, watching and whispering. She had shied away from their gazes, and her trembling hands had dropped the apple that she had taken for herself. It rolled just beyond them, into the shadows, and Talia gave chase without thought, stepping away from Bane and his reach.

Watching, waiting, the man's hands were quick and strangling about her neck as he took advantage of her lapse in order to pull her deeper down one of the side tunnels. His breath smelled sour in her face from where his teeth had rotted long ago. His nails were jagged, nervous things as they pressed and clawed against her skin. She swallowed her scream, not giving her fear a voice as she ducked the way she had been taught. She rolled and avoided the larger weight opposite of her, but she was still a child with a child's strength, and the knife she stabbed into the man's side did little to dissuade him from his course.

But still she had held on, and _twisted_, and the man howled, even as he lifted his hands to her neck, trying to smother her.

But the man's cry of pain had been the thing that killed him, because Bane was there in the shadowed space, throwing the man from her, and to the ground. The man pleaded, but Bane's blows were slow and punishing, less intended to hurt the man so much as they were aimed to warn those who were watching, those who were waiting with calculating eyes as the man broke and crumbled under the assault.

And finally, when the man could take no more, whimpering and pleading as Talia would have pleaded, Bane forced the man to kneel before her. With an iron grip, he held his head up by the hair, exposing his throat as an offering. And Bane said, "This man's life is yours."

And Talia had stood and watched the man with wide eyes as the crowd gathered right beyond them - snickering and hollering and roaring their approval for the show. Talia shrank away from them, even as she clutched Bane's knife in her hand to keep her fingers from trembling. She was not a stranger to death - to murder, even. It was as rote as sunrise and sunset in the Pit, and she knew – _she knew_ how each and every man who had been involved in Melisande's death had fallen to Bane's hand throughout the years, he carrying out their own form of justice in a place that had naught . . . But . . .

"It is yours . . . if you wish to take it," he softened his words, just barely, and yet he did not call her _little one_. This was not a decision for youth and innocence, this was real and dirty and hellish in a place that had no law or code. The blade in her hand did not tremble, but she had to bite her tongue in order to keep her mouth from turning with her emotion. Her blood was metallic and hot from where she bit too hard. She let the taste ground her.

. . . never had a soul fallen to her hand, she thought. In that way still, she could claim innocence.

Bane was very still before her, waiting. His eyes watched, and she wondered if he would be disappointed or pleased at the choice she would make. She wondered which path he wished for her to take - for this was not the same as stabbing a man's hand for a piece of bread – the instinct of a starving animal, facing life or death. This was not the same as pressing down on the throat of a man who was dying of the plague, granting a kindness, however small, in a place that had no mercy. This was not _what had to be done_.

The was an eye for an eye, a debt repaid.

And Talia remembered the way her mother had screamed, she remembered the desperation in Bane's eyes as she grew, she remembered the sick look in the man's eyes as he pinned her, and suddenly the cold flame in the core of her _burned_ -

- and she sank the blade in slow. She could feel tissue split and organic things tear, and yet she could not find it within herself to feel guilt. Guilt was like hunger, and she had suffered their pangs too long in her life to fret over the decision to end an evil man's life – death was its own form of rising, you see, and in the Pit, it was a gift in way, as well. It was peace; an eternal rest away from a sun that cared too little.

And, past that, he would have taken what was not his to take. So she returned to him his crime. It was balance, it was _justice _in the only way she knew how to define it.

Bane let her keep his knife after that, and she tucked it down the front of the wraps that kept from the others her shape. It is a weight there, a comfort placed at her side as much as her friend was one at her back.

It was a promise, as well.

.

.

It was twilight one of the days following, and, as always, Talia sat very still by the bars of their cell, and watched as the day died. The light retreated, climbing higher and higher up the walls of the Pit until the shadows covered all, and then there was nothing left but the night.

There was a halfway point during the sunset – a point where they had just enough light to see, but not enough to be seen, and it was in those fledgling minutes when Bane sat very quietly behind her and ran a sharp blade over her scalp, taking the bit of new growth from her hair. It had grown darker over the years, dark like Talia remembered her mother's being, and she bit her lip and tried not to breathe so as to not throw the path of the blade. It was a delicate work, but he had yet to puncture her skin during their years together, and she trusted him not to still.

Normally, she was silent, the ritual reminding her of her mother and her sadness before her death. But, tonight, she asked, "What is behind the light?" with the curiosity of one who had known nothing more than her cell and the walls which made it.

Instead of answering, he told her the story of a once caged boy who flew too close to the sun, with feathers held to his arms by wax in order to grant him wings. But he was a creature of the ground, and the heat of the sun was too much for his not-real wings to take.

"So Icarus fell," she whispered, finishing the story for him.

"Yes, " Bane gave, running a careful finger down the now bare expanse of her skull. She leaned into the touch, letting it ground her as the light above them disappeared completely. "But first, he flew."

She could hear it in his voice, the resignation. In her veins, an understanding lit, and she felt a peace settle in her bones as his hand fell away. It was acceptance as much as it was a form of tiredness, knowing that one way or the other, it would soon all be over.

"It is time, little one," he finally said after some time had passed, waiting to speak until the shadows had fallen completely. "But, I think you know that."

Around them, she could feel whispers and eyes close in on them like the sky pressing down above. And so she looked into her friend's eyes and nodded solemnly. She was ready.

.

.

It took merely days after that for the whispers in the pit to turn to screams - the men having scented blood in the water and finally finding it.

She wasn't sure what started it, she only knew that her steps were safe, and then they were not. Suddenly, Bane was pushing her towards the wall and fighting off the wave of men who had closed in on them. Talia ran, but she could not stop herself from looking back again and again, just out of reach of the grasping hands on the wall as Bane hit and clawed and battered away the men who would keep her down. He was a boulder against the tide, keeping the sea of hands and teeth from her, and yet he would not last forever against such an onslaught. In the end, Bane would be nothing against a sea of desperation and all of the black and festering parts of men without any humanity left to them. So, as he did those years ago, he held her away from the mob, and lifted her up.

Hands reached for her, but her friend was a giant, towering above them all. He lifted her without defending himself, and as she was freed, he was shackled.

"Do not look down," his voice ordered, calling after her, and she understood. _Do not watch. Do not mourn. Do not look at what you leave behind._

"Goodbye," she heard him whisper, and her heart hammered with something far greater than fear. Her heart writhed and screamed in her chest, but it was second nature for her to cross the paths that they had mapped out over and over again throughout the years. The stones of the Pit had been her hearth for so long, the walls her bedchamber, the sky above her ceiling and great domain. She was a child of the Pit, fruit of the barren and bitter earth, and it was time that the earth gave back a tithe of what it had taken.

There was no chanting as she made her ascent, no rope tied around her waist to catch her should she fall. There was only her nimble fingers, her quick feet, and her heart stabbing in her chest like something possessed.

Below, the men screamed, felled and incensed as their prize was taken from them. It was an unholy sound, a sound that shaped her grip and steeled her resolve as she swung herself up and up and _up._

And barely, just barely, she thought that she heard Bane's voice below.

_Rise, rise, rise, rise . . ._

And so, she took that last step forward, and thought of the boy with the make-believe wings.

Her breath rose in her throat. It caught.

And she _jumped_.

.

.

And the surface of the earth welcomed her as its own, birthed from its very womb.

Talia hit the ground running, and did not – _could not _look back.

. . . at least, not yet.

.

.

She made it into the decaying city right past their prison in the earth.

Once the ancient structure around her had been grand and majestic, the providence profiting from the violence of war and the riches that conquest brought. The warlord in the area had been overthrown some years ago, Talia had heard, the tale bringing a cheer from the men in the Pit who had been put there by that warlord's hands. The entire city had been burned by the Demon's Head, who had returned to deliver swift vengeance for the wife he had thought lost to him. The palace he had left in ruins, the ancient city in tatters, with nothing but the stain of ash and soot to tell of the ones who had once lived in the towering edifice before. Only the strong wall that had surrounded the city remained nearly in tact, the heat of rising flames not enough to bring it to ruin. Beyond the ruins, there was a new city, risen from the ashes, sprawling and grand, and Talia stared, amazed that such a thing could exist. She stood there for a moment, taking in the texture of the dry ground underneath her feet, looking at the low and hardy bushes that decorated the landscape in shades of rust and ocher. She looked on, bewildered and a bit overwhelmed, even as she stumbled forward, not trusting her escape until she was somewhere she could let her guard down – somewhere she could let loose her tears and mourn her friend, somewhere she could find out where to go next in a world that was now threatening to swallow her.

She lifted her scarf over her head and stared defiantly at the horizon, where the setting sun was suddenly so much larger than it had ever seemed in the Pit. She made her way into the ruins of the warlord's city. In the ruins, there were still some souls left – those who could not, or did not wish to move to the thriving city beyond. There was food to be found for one used to slipping through the edges of the shadows and light, and Talia stole clothing and bread – stale, but fresher than anything she had ever tasted in her life. The water from the well was sweeter than anything in the Pit, and though her meal was sparse, Talia felt like royalty as she dined in the great hall, where she fancied a throne used to be.

She slept in the shadow of the decaying wall that night, keeping her back to the stone and holding her small knife in her hand rather letting it rest by her side. The desert nights were cold, especially without Bane's heat at her back, keeping her warm. The stone was hard behind her, but it did not breathe. She could not feel its heart beat against her. She rolled, trying to get comfortable, she couldn't quite decide what to do with her arms. She couldn't seem to make herself small enough in a world that was suddenly so _large_.

It was hard to sleep that first night.

But Talia was practical. Her body needed to rest. So she rested.

In the distance, thunder rumbled like a giants heartbeat. It helped, but just barely.

* * *

** Parting Notes**

**Talia's Mother**: Melisande is the name of Talia's mother in the comics (whom Ra's met at Woodstock), but not the name of Ra's original love, who was named Sora. So, like Nolan before me, I am crushing two characters into one.

**Melisande Speaking French**: Henri Ducard was French in the comics, before Nolan joined Ducard and Ra's into the same character. This was a tiny throw back. As was Bane speaking Spanish. ;)

**Bane's Name**: Is completely made up by me. _Baldassare_ is a form of the Phoenician name _Balthasar_, which means 'Baal protect the king' - a name which I found ironic on a few different levels. Even the king part is fitting, seeing how Talia does wear the pants in the grand scheme of things, just saying. A part of me felt sacrilegious giving him a name without canon's permission, but a larger part of me stopped caring about halfway through writing the fic. I'm sure you guys know how that goes.

As always, thank-you for reading, and until the next part . . .


	2. a blade to bare

** Author's Note: **First of all, I have to take a moment to thank you guys for your awesome comments. You all are amazing in every sense of the word! Here we are with the next part - for which, I have to say that I mentioned quite a few places I have never been to. So, if anyone has a higher understanding and wishes to correct my cultural errors, feel free to PM me. :)

And now, on to the fic . . .

* * *

**II. a blade to bare**

And Talia drifted.

She came to find that the world was bigger than she had ever imagined. It seemed to never end at times – the cold desert stretched on and on, its horizons constantly spanning further and further in the distance, but once its edges were crossed, the cities she found beyond were huge, bustling things. The great crossing points of the world put the villages and hamlets she had traveled through - places she had first thought to be massive and filled to the brim - to shame. They were nothing more than small stops on an endless map; footsteps in a sea of sand.

As much as she could, she kept to the more ancient parts of the world. She stuck to the gutters and the shadowed places, still shaving her head and binding her figure – for a poor boy scrapping by was easier to see past and overlook over than a girl without a name or protector in an old and tired land. She picked pockets and stole food and gained coin through helping the haggle of riff raft that existed no matter what country or providence she passed through. She endured. She survived.

And, slowly but surely, she started to rise.

While traveling, she found that she loved architecture, but hated sleeping indoors. She disliked having a roof over her head, closing her in. If she had to learn how to sleep without a strong arm protecting her, then she refused to do so without the stars above. And so, whenever she could, she tucked herself into small corners of the world at night, letting the shadows protect her where Bane could not.

She found that mountains fascinated her. Valleys and hills drew her eyes and quickened her heartbeat. She could not understand the emptiness of the sea, the vastness of it, all a wet and moving echo of the sky above, and so she stood on the shore for hours and drank in the ever constant retreat and charge of the tide as it was pushed and pulled by the moon above.

Over time, the names of the cities that sheltered her and put sand in her boots started to blur and run. She, who had once known only the solitary walls of her prison home, could now roll dozens upon dozens of syllables upon her tongue and know the shapes of the places they heralded - Marrakesh, Gibraltar, Damascus, Kabul, Yerevan, Calcuta, Yangon, Beijing - these and more. She kept to the center band of the world, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and wandered, letting the wind show her what it wished for her to find.

In Delhi she stood on the banks of the sacred river and wondered how so many people could fit into one place at one time. The spices she discovered there amazed her, budding on her tongue and ripping in her throat the first time she experienced them. There were people everyone, packed one over the other like the men had in the Pit, scurrying for the best scraps of food as they rained down from above. She was young, very young, during the years she spent in India, and she learned the art of picking pockets and tailing marks from the orphan kids of the city. She learned the idea of holiness from an old monk who gave her bread every day, his orange robes bright against the pale stones of the temple behind him. He had called her _boy_, as unknowing as anyone else, and Talia had nodded her head and had not tried to correct him as she nibbled on the bread he gave before giving a shallow bow at the waist and scurrying away.

In Bagan, she admired the architecture of the religious buildings who reigned over the jungles there. She found the scents of incense intoxicating, billowing on the air like moisture before a storm. The smoke and the chanting of the priests was enough to keep her attention for hours, and while she did not believe in the god they prayed to, she admired the beauty of their devotion. She understood the shape of their praise - she_,_ who had watched the sky for so long and known hope, knew a holiness stronger than a prayer to any faceless deity. She worked in a guesthouse there, serving tea to the pilgrims who came and went, and her feet stayed put for a time out of the urge to understand why the masses passing through where so devout. She wished to understand the meaning of their worship.

In Oman and the sweeping lands of Saudi Arabia, she learned the art of reading the desert and its ways. The sands moved with her, she already one of their own, and the empty sky and the empty dunes spook to her like those rainy nights in the Pit had long ago as she covered her face and smiled to the wastes. She was about fifteen, still keeping to the guise of a boy, when she spent a whole summer there learning the art of horsemanship with a breeder of the Bedouin, and the peace and serenity of the work and the land was something she never completely forgot. She flew falcons and listened as the family who took her in spoke about honor and the bonds of kinship. She even saw as a man was made to prove his innocence in a trail by fire - a _Bisha'a_, where he proved his accusers wrong by eating fire in his forefather's ways. Talia watched and pondered, the desert sky heavy on her shoulders as she felt her own sense of morals and justice bend and warp with each new experience she faced.

In Bangladesh, she was able to get by on her grasping understanding of Urdu - one of the languages Bane had taught to her in the Pit, and she paid her way by working in the paddy fields. She lingered there and developed a fondness for mangos and kathal, and an affinity with the earthy, hardworking people who lived there. Even more than that, she was amazed by how the earth constantly flooded, water the strongest thing in that region. She waded through the pregnant river, fascinated by the fact that the muddy water was up near her thighs where the day prior it was nothing more than swampy ground under her feet. Eventually, she moved on from Dhaka, following the Ganges to the mountains she could see rising in the distance, calling to her.

In the end, she had dozens upon dozens of things she wished to show her friend, to share with him, but that was only if she could find her way back to him through all of the new steps her feet had taken. And to that end, she sought out her father, going on the tales that Melisande had told of her great love. She used her mother's stories, and the even more recent tales that the newer inmates of the Pit had told of the demon known as Ra's al-Ghul. Both were facets of the same man, and Talia used every possible detail she had available to her when she made her hunt.

But the god of shadows was illusive at best, and not one easily pinned down. The men who followed the League were fanatical to the point of death, and the few times that Talia had tried to get her information by force had proved fruitless past giving her a reference point for what the human body – the human _mind_, could take and endure. As time went by, she felt little guilt for any of the necessary evils she committed while on her path. She was unable to feel much for the world that had shunned her so, and to that end she fancied herself like the sky over a faceless mass - pitiless and cruel, but essential for life.

It suited her well, she told herself, the cold flame she had burning inside of her. It had let her rise once. Now, she just waited for it to do so again.

In the end, where she could not find her father, she gave him a legend to follow – the legend of a child, born in hell, birthed of a great love, who escaped that prison due to the blood which had begotten it. She called herself the child of Ra's al-Guhl, speaking the name she had never breathed aloud, but had heard all too often on her mother's tongue, during those hazy, pre-dawn years in the Pit.

It took time, but Talia knew how the shadows worked. And so, slowly but surely, she let them carry her to him.

.

.

It took three years, nearly four, before her search bore any fruit.

Her journey had come to a pause in a small town in the Kashmir vale, tucked into the low part of the Himalayas, drawn as she was by the indomitable rise of the mountains and the curiosity she held for snow. She liked this area of the world, calm and callused as it was, and even though the air was frigid and unwelcoming, she learned how to be warm on buttered tea and yak meat. She learned how to breathe in air that held little oxygen. Her body became loose, rested in the shadow of the mountains - their massive stone fingers rising from the earth in a futile effort to touch the sky. Talia understood their rise and their insatiable reaching. She had grown as they had grown, and she fancied herself kindred to them as she carved out a place for herself at their base.

It was there that she finally decided to let her hair grow out. After a few months without taking a blade to her scalp, the tresses had already came down to cover her neck, nearly reaching her shoulders. They were dark, thick and soft as she remembered her mother's being. More and more so, when Talia looked into the mirror, she found her memory of her mother being refreshed. She bore Melisande's face perfectly, and the sight was both bruise and balm to her when she beheld it. All was the same, all but for the color of her eyes. Their shape and full stare was Melisande's; their color, cold and blue, belonged to that of a stranger, a stranger who Talia hoped to someday meet. She no longer bound her figure, at first keeping to the sanctuary of thick winter gear to hide her frame, and she was surprised when she had to adjust her clothes to fit. Her body had curved and bloomed over the years, nearly the form of a young woman rather than that of a gangly child. A few years of eating well and regularly and the exhilaration of her travels had made her body lean and strong, hardened and fit through years of running and searching and crafting herself into a blade in order to survive.

While her body had grown, her purpose in the world had grown as well, ever carrying out justice in her own form of the word. She stole when she was hungry. She killed and hurt when it was needed. But finding odd jobs in the criminal underworld had led her to the head of the rings time and time again, ever showing her where to cut and place pressure to do the most damage. Prisons were laughable to her – for what walls could hold her now? Such things were just a training field – practice, as she struck and bit out at that which laid within. Each death, each cut at the roots of the criminal world was all a ploy, a plea – _find me_, she said to the shadows, and it wasn't until she was doing time in a Chinese prison in Sikkim (for spoiling a local arms dealer's fun with a girl who wanted no part with him) in the foothills of the mountains that she met Ra's' emissary – a tall and imposing man named Henri Ducard.

"It is quite a name you have developed for yourself," he started out by saying, his voice coming from the shadows, so entwined was he with them that Talia actually had to look twice to find him amongst the darkness.

She was still kneeling on the ground from where she had been shoved back into her cell, spitting out blood from where the guard had backhanded her for a smartly spoken word. But that same cold flame was burning inside of her, and she felt no pain, only curiosity as she ran her tongue over the back of her front teeth in order to make sure they were all still intact.

They were all there, for the time being, at any rate. She made a sucking noise, clearing the blood from her lips with her tongue before wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. She stood when she was assured that nothing was too seriously damaged, and she wiped the ice and mud off of her clothes before answering, "It was the one given to me," in a tone that did not care, that did not_ matter _as she looked at him carefully from the corner of his eyes. Ducard was a tall man, not as tall as she remembered Bane to be – but she already knew where to hit to topple him. Where to poke and scratch and place pressure. But there was an odd sort of warning in the back of her mind that advised words rather than blows. The man looked as if he had once been a part of the mountains - as if his stony body and rugged features had been clipped from the snow and cliffs rather than born from anything soft and mortal. His eyes were clear and hawk-like, watching her with the sharp regard of a hunting creature as she took him in and made her impression. Her fists clenched. She felt adrenaline spike, even though he was giving her no fight to wage.

_You will not win_, the cold flame at the core of her whispered its warning, _not as you are now_.

And so Talia listened. It was a sixth sense that had kept her alive for that long, and she was not stupid enough to discard its warnings now.

Ducard said nothing to her for a minute's time, instead choosing to stare at her. His stare searched, travelling over the shape of her face, mapping out the sharp cast of her jaw and the round curve of her cheeks. She had a full mouth, turned down more often than not, and while her eyes were large in her face, they gave nothing away.

His did neither, but he apparently reached a decision when he said, "And yet, the name is nothing if the one bearing it does not measure up to the weight of it. You don the mantle of a legend, but you are just one woman, clawing and scratching even though there are no bars left to hold you."

She squared her jaw, but did not rise to the taunt. He paused, as if waiting, and finally she said, lowly, "There are no bars that can hold me," in a voice that promised. "Not even the ones around me right now."

"I believe that to be true," Ducard said, and Talia looked up, weighing his words for a slight before finding none. She turned away from him, keeping her eyes on the floor of the cell rather than on the ceiling. "And yet, here you are, serving out a sentence for petty heroics in a town that no one knows the name of. The girl you saved, for example -"

" - her name was Choden. Ask her if she thinks my deeds to be empty." Talia interrupted, her tone level, the edges curved to bite.

"Yes, you saved the girl, but you left the man free to do as he may to any other," Ducard pointed out. "Your blows lack direction, they lack purpose."

"What do you want, Mr. Ducard?" Talia finally asked outright. "I came to this place to rest, not to have my actions mocked and scorned. If you have nothing to say, I ask you to take your leave and let me be."

A heartbeat. Something about Ducard's face said he wished to smile, but he did not. "I represent a man, a powerful man, whose hatred of injustice in all of its forms just may match your own. With the guidance of Ra's al-Ghul - with the League of Shadows, it is possible for us to train you. To hone your abilities until you are a tool, poised to strike against the core of injustice, rather than just the shadows of it."

Talia snorted. "Fanatics," she breathed, even as she felt a spike in her chest. After years of searching, this was what she had waited for. _This_ was what she had wanted. "Terrorists who use the shield of their cause to sleep better at night."

Ducard inclined his head. "Many have said that of us through the years. But those who say as much are simply those who are not strong enough to do what must be done. Now, I ask you – are you strong enough? Do you have what it takes to step forth where others have fallen through."

"You tell me, Mr. Ducard," she said, tipping her face up so that her eyes caught the light, a reflex as old as time to her. "Something tells me that you would not be here otherwise."

Ducard snorted. "Men ten times more than you have tried and been found wanting. In the end, it matters not what I think."

But it did. It so very did. Talia thought of the sea of bodies in the Pit and her friend being swallowed, and knew that it meant _everything_. Her hands fisted. She forced her heart to still.

And Ducard watched her as if he knew every one of her struggles. Every one of her hopes and fears.

"If you have tired of sparring with the petty mire on the bottom of humanity, I wish to offer an invitation to you. Tomorrow, you will be released. If you wish to find what you are looking for, head for the monastery at the top of the mountain. There is a rare blue flower that grows on the slopes there, pick it, and bring it with you."

Talia waited a moment, a heartbeat, before answering. She turned his words over, one then the other, in her mind. "And what will I find there?"

He paused. Ducard's eyes were sad, and for a moment she was reminded of Bane and the way he would look when she was confused by the idea of the world beyond the Pit. "When that time comes . . . that will be for you to decide."

.

.

And so, once again, Talia climbed.

Her fingers bled from where they scraped against the rock and the cold. Her lungs ached, made dry and stretched thin on the bitterly cold air she breathed. Her body protested, each muscle and limb screaming as she once again asked it to do the impossible. But, even so, it responded. Once again, her weary limbs did what was said could not be done - taking the impossible and turning it mute under the weight of her determination and her conviction. When she felt herself start to falter, she would simply glare at the mountains and bite her tongue, letting the warm flare of blood in her mouth ground her. The mountains were just too large things who could not reach the sky, and Talia had long since been used to dealing with them and their kind.

The air was thin here, and growing even thinner the higher she ascended, but she was used to harsh climates. She breathed in deep and slow, and climbed at an even, steady pace, feeling the burn in her muscles and the tightening in her chest that came with great heights and that fine line between rising and falling.

When she found the bloom, she was surprised to see that it was a small thing, tiny in her hands. Harder than the climb itself was being careful not to crush the bright blue flower's petals as she ascended up the face of the mountain. Her own face she would press against the rockmass when the path became thin, the next step nearly non-existent, but the pack on her back she carefully kept away from the stone, not wishing to see her prize bruised.

The higher she went, the more she decided that the view from the peaks was unparalleled by any other she had seen during her travels to date. A part of her – the part that still belonged to her protector - carefully put the details in her mind away, so that one day, she could tell them to him. He used to spin such stories to her, and now, it was she who could offer hope in the sky. It was she who could speak of life beyond the Pit and seek wonder in return. When the mountain seemed insurmountable before her, she remembered the tales he would tell to her on the days when she fell, when she could not scale the wall and her fingers and knees would scrape and bruise. She remembered his hand on her shoulder as he infused her tired little body with new life with his words alone.

She remembered, and the memories infused her with a new determination, a new energy as she climbed. This time she breathed in the mountain air, and she felt cleansed, as if something black was being purged through her veins with the pain, with the impossibility of her feat. And so, when she scaled that last heighth, and saw the elegant slope of Ra's al-Ghul's monastery, she felt triumphant, more awake and aware at the top of the mountain than she was when she had first embarked upon her journey. Her eyes were bright when she reached the large double doors of the temple, fevered even, and though her cheeks were bitten by the wind and her body screamed its fatigue, she stood up straight. When she smiled, it was more of a grimace, baring her teeth, showing them sharp and clean and ready to tear.

She was admitted by men clad in shadow black, with steps that sounded like whispers even though the wind from beyond struck against the monastery and made its old wooden beams creak. Talia's boots were covered in ice and mud, and she sounded like a wounded beast stumbling through the underbrush in contrast to the silent men who led her.

When she was admitted to Ra's' chamber, the men who had escorted her faded into the dark parts of the room as silently as they had appeared, not a word spoken the whole of their journey. Talia watched them leave for a heartbeat before turning to see the familiar form of Ducard, whose hawk shaped eyes were on the blue blossom that she had in her hands.

"Your flower," she announced, throwing the small bloom onto the wood floor that stretched between Ducard and her. Ducard, her, and an Asian man with wise looking eyes and robes stained a dark and deep red; a smear of blood against the shadows around them, just barely kept at bay by the lazy torches on the walls. He watched her over the brim of a steaming cup of tea, sipping daintily as if to taunt and teased. Talia eyed the steam, but asked for naught, used was she to watching while other people were full.

The man - Ra's, Talia presumed by the way the shadowed men who hid in the corners of the room bowed in difference – inclined his head when Ducard retrieved the flower and presented it to him, waving a hand to the bloom in dismissal. Talia, who had bled and froze in order to retrieve the flower, watched it go with ownership in her gaze. Her jaw tightened. She made fists of her hands, keeping them still at her side.

Ra's was watching her every move carefully, Ducard even more so. They said something in a language different than what Duccard had used when he had happened upon her in the prison at the base of the mountains. She caught a word or two, and then her mind caught on as it once again shifted to match the syllables as they were spoken – Urdu, the language a mixture of the one used at the base of the mountain, and a more ancient form of a tongue from further east. It was an earthy dialect, used for temples and the study of the most holy. She paused, and caught how the syllables spoke of her accomplishment of scaling the mountain. They mentioned her bloody fingers, peaking through where she had cut holes in the tips of her gloves in order to better feel the stone under her hands. They mentioned her eyes, their shape and their color. They mentioned how they matched her mother's gaze. They wondered then, how eyes straight from Melisande's face could stare with such a hardness, such a hate.

And Talia stiffened, a part of her protecting a still wounded spot as an animal would cover its den, and said in their tongue, "You did not know Melisande in her final days then, if you think she could not know hate." Her voice chipped coldly at those she addressed, the same as the ice had against her skin while on the mountain beyond.

There was silence in the room then, even the shadows hushing and turning to listen as the Demonhead his right hand stood still and watched her with eyes that weighed.

"No, we did not know her then," Ducard said in a voice that rang hollow. It was a ghost born thing to her ears, apparition shaped and wanting. "Not as we knew her before."

Talia watched him closely, her eyes narrowed. She watched the way Ra's inclined his head and the way Ducard swallowed. Finally, Ra's bowed his head to her, and a part of Talia went to bow in return, but something stopped her. His eyes . . . they were all wrong, a part of her protested. For Melisande had spoken of a man with eyes like the glaciers in the north of the world; cold eyes and a strong face, with a harsh mouth that knew how to smile when pressed, who knew how to make her laugh even in the most hopeless of situations. . . This man in holy robes, seated on high with soft lines to his face and a dark cast to his eyes . . .

"You are not Ra's al-Ghul," she announced to the room, her words battle-bold and marching. "You cannot be."

The silence that followed was louder than the chatter from the Pit ever could have been. The men of the League said nothing. They did not whisper. She could hardly hear them breathe. And still she looked around, looking for what she could not see. She only caught a flicker there. A movement there. Her eyes searched and came to fall on Ducard. They lingered.

When she fisted her hands, they trembled. The words she wished to speak were a weakness to her, feeling made crippling as an unnamed emotion came and rose high in her throat. "But it is an honor to meet you . . . father."

The man who was not Ra's clapped, slowly and elegantly, while his thin mouth gave way to a laugh. Another set of words were passed between them, this time in a tongue that Talia could not understand, and then the man - whom later she would know as Ubu, her father's most trusted servant - stood with a low bow to them both. Ducard – _Ra's_– did not watch him leave, instead opting to stare at her with a glow to his eyes that Talia remembered in Bane's when she had tricked from some larger man his food or water.

And so she stood, weary but bright eyed, and waited.

And barely, just barely, Ra's al-Ghul smiled at his daughter. "Welcome to the League of Shadows."

.

.

She was given a room of her own.

Instinctively, her mind thought _cell_ looking at the little chamber, even as she brushed the thought away. The quarters given to Ra's al-Ghul's men were sparse, a lesson in spartan living - but she was fortunate to have a room to her own, where most of the new recruits were kept to barracks until they had proven that they could stay alive through the rigorous training that came with being initiated by the shadows. There was a narrow bed on the far wall, low and close to the floor, and the only other pieces of furniture were a small desk and a trunk for anything she may have had to store. Talia let her pack, everything she had in the world, fall to the floor with a dull thud. The battered canvas was a match for the lacquered floor - who had seen more visitors than her pass through over the centuries. Slowly, the snow on the canvas melted, puddling on the wood in a shallow pool.

The only decorative touch in the room was a shallow basin with sticks of incense on the desk, no doubt meant for meditation and the clearing the mind. Though she had no intention to lose herself in a trance just yet, she lit them, one at a time. The scents grounded her, the different smells still new and intoxicating to her even after four years of freedom.

There was a small window on the longest wall of her room, looking out on the mountains beyond. The sun was just finishing its descent, loosing its high place in the sky as it gave in to the fall of the night. Talia watched the sun die, and undid the braid in her hair, kicking off her boots and finding where the small trunk at the foot of her bed had been stocked with simple clothing - sturdy leggings and coarse woolen tunics. There were warm things for training in the mountain snows, and light but insulated clothes for the cold mountain nights. She stripped out of her wet clothes, and dressed for the night, turning to feed the small stove in the corner of the room for warmth. When exhaustion finally insisted that she close her eyes, she ignored the bed, instead taking the folded blanket from the mattress and spreading it out on the ground. She still chose to sleep on the floor over a bed, preferring the hardwood (like stone) against her back. It was familiar. It was comfortable. Furthering the sense of familiarity at night, she slept with a dagger held between her fingers, even deep as she was in the heart of the Demonhead's temple. Over the years, she had become used to sleeping alone, but still she found that she needed to settle her mind before sleep would claim her. She had to concentrate, focusing and relaxing her taut muscles one at a time while imagining strong arms enveloping her whole. It was a long process, but she was used to it.

Finally she slept, and she slept without dreams.

.

.

The days passed, and Talia found herself initiated in the way of shadows.

If she was looking for a father, she found none, but in the deep parts of her mind, she knew that the role of protector and comforter were already taken. She needed them not. Instead she found a mentor, a cold and chiseled presence who talked about balance and fear and the triumphing over ones fears. Ra's called the cold flame in the core of her _anger_, where Talia would have called it _hate_. Hate, he said, would destroy her from the inside out, rotting her bones until they could not stand under the weight of her feeling so. Anger, though. Anger could be harnessed. It could be honed. Anger could become indignation – righteous and just. Anger could become the fuel to take a stand against those who stood unjustly over all. For Talia, who had grown in a world without right and wrong, the idea of his teachings struck a chord, and she listened while she honed her body and developed her skills. The crude knife that Bane had forged in the Pit was becoming a weapon in the hands of Ra's al-Ghul, a wicked blade ready to cut with the slightest of pressures.

And then, during the rare moments that it was just the quiet and the flickering light of candles in the evenings – the moments where Talia could pretend that Ra's was as much a father as she was a daughter - Ra's asked about his wife and her fate, voicing the question that had loitered in his eyes since he had first found her at the base of the mountains.

Dutifully, Talia told him what she could remember of Melisande – which was not much, the memory growing hazier and more distant with every passing day. She told him little things, the things she held dear. She told him of the woman who would claw out a man's eyes when crossed, the fierce thing who held her daughter close and did what she could in the time she had left to her before the inevitable. Talia told him of Melisande's stories; of her love. And she spoke of her death with the numbness of one who had faced the same fate day in and day out. She spoke as one who had risen above it. She spoke with a numb voice and clenched fists as Ra's had looked on with a cold flame in his eyes that Talia fancied was just like the one at the core of her. He did not speak when Talia was done, and she did not press to know his thoughts, to understand his mind. She understood his anger, and that was enough.

And yet, more than the ghost of her mother, she spoke of her protector in those twilight hours. She spoke of her Baldassare, the man who had been her hope in place of the sky above when everything around them had been dark and shaded grey.

_Without him, I would not be alive_, she said simply, as if that should have explained everything – as if that should have _meant _everything. She had stood on the shoulders of a giant, and she had soared while he remained on the broken ground.

And now . . .

_Someday . . . someday soon . . . I will return for him._

Her voice was a promise, even as Ra's inclined his head indulgently, allowing her her thoughts without disagreeing outright. But Talia was long used to looking for a battle in one's eyes, even as shadowed a gaze as his.

And so, she set her jaw and bid him to do his worse.

.

.

Of course, the fight did not even there.

It continued, carried on in its many forms - everything from whispered pleas in dim corridors, to logical insistence over shared meals and outright demands on the dojo's floor. She drew the line at stamping her foot like a petulant child in front of Ra's' men, but if it would have meant his agreement – his acceptance and aid, she would have stooped to that indignity and even lower still.

Ra's al-Ghul was stubborn, but Talia was patient. For years she had trained to rise from the Pit. For years she had schooled and dedicated herself to finding her father. She had waited, just as long, to rescue her friend, which was a slower moving blade, ever present in her side. It stuck. She could feel it between her ribs, pushing aside flesh to find bone. It was a sharp pain, as much of an impetus as the cold flame in the core of her.

When her annoyance and rage had her pouring through the men her father let her fight (not due to strength of her own – not yet; but she was not about to lessen her blows on men who would not fight the Demonhead's daughter to the fullest extent of their abilities), Ra's took to teaching her himself. Those lessons were a new lesson in humility, she coming away the lesser in their spars time and time again. But the losses did not force her down. Each fall had its own lesson to teach, and she would have been lying if she said that every time she climbed the wall under Bane's watchful gaze she had made it without falling, without scraping her fingers and skinning her knees. Instead of buckling under the pressure, she proved how she could pick herself up to stand, again and again and again until it was near impossible to keep her down. Ra's watched her progression, and even though he said nothing, she knew he was proud. That pride was a faint thing, hidden in the farthest parts of his eyes, but she was long used to reading subtle nuances of emotion in gazes. His was no different.

"Please," she tried once more - the latest of many attempts, and when she spoke the simple word was honest on her tongue. The syllables of the entreaty pooled, bitter and fierce, hanging heavily in the air between them.

"You do not even know if the man is alive," Ra's finally snapped, the most logical of blows in return. "You said yourself that the mob consumed him as you left – what makes you think that they would have let him live?"

"But you do not _know_. It is impossible to be certain - one way or the other," Talia countered, her voice fervent, her eyes alight as she climbed to her feet again. "He is strong. Stronger than any man I have ever known. If anyone could have lived, it would be him."

"No man is infallible," Ra's retorted, the edges of his mouth curving, not quite making a sneer. "And I will not risk my men on a fool's mission for the sake of _sentiment_."

He circled her, waiting, and Talia fell loosely back into a defensive position in reply. She held her hands up, and watched him warily, her eyes holding the stillness of a viper as she watched the way he moved. Carefully, she paid attention to the way his weight shifted, to the way his limbs flexed. He leaned right, but charged left. Talia spun, and deflected his first swing.

"And what makes you think he will even want to see you?" Ra's continued next, his words fighting for the right to steal her air more so than any of his actual blows. "_You_, the child who left and abandoned him to die in hell? What makes you think that your devotion to him is as strong as his to you? What makes you think that he will continue to cherish the thing that would have destroyed him?"

A rush. She moved too quickly, and paid for it with a kick to the stomach. She ducked right, recovering from the blow and fixing her course as she came back around, but not soon enough. In return, Ra's' fists were almost teasing as he pointed out her mistakes. But she was fast. She ducked again and sprang up behind him, all a child stealing bread from much larger men all over again.

"He lifted me up," she scathed when she had the breath to do so. Her voice was sharp, more emotion than she would have liked to show her father leaking into the syllables. "I would not have had risen without him . . . and I cannot believe that he would have held that against me."

And still her throat was tight. The soft parts she still carried – the parts of her she held behind her heart and lungs – ached with the thought of _what if I have become nothing but a blight to his memories_? _A nuisance? A bane?_

She missed a step, and in return Ra's next blow was punishing on her shoulder in order to point out her weakness, her flaws. She scowled at her own feeling. Emotion – _fear_ – it had no place in a fight. In any fight, from a simple spar to the ultimate battle which they all waged in union with the League. Fear made one weak. It made one expendable. To some extent, Talia agreed with him and his teachings on that prospective – but it had been her fear, her anger, her _hope_, that had helped her escape the Pit all of those years ago, and it was that which kept her going now. Someday, he said, that emotion would cripple her. It would destroy her.

But, for now, Talia let it burn bright. Ra's turned, looking to build upon where she had faltered, and she stood up straight and tall under his scrutiny. When she spoke, her voice burned. "How could my friend now hate me? Do you think that Melisande hated you in those final days? Do you think that she could bring herself to know hate during those years she was able to keep herself – to keep _me_, alive?"

A stronger blow, aimed for her midsection. She sidestepped, her heart quick in her chest. That one would have done some damage. "Do you think she _could_ have began to curse your name?" Talia continued. "_She, _who loved so fiercely that she would condemn herself to such a place to begin with?"

Another blow, quick. Another and another. Talia danced. She waited.

"You speak of things you do not – you _can not _understand," Ra's countered. His voice was calm when he spoke, his eyes like a frozen lake, still and carefully serene. But there was a faint furrow between his brows. He struck to punish now.

And Talia ducked and spun and turned, and finally landed a hit of her own, low on his back. He brushed the blow off, almost catching her fist as she completed the jab, and Talia danced backwards again. "How can love for a child be any less for that of a mate? They are different kinds of love, one can argue, but all are _love_– one and the same," Talia said, her voice near mocking. And yet, the air around her stilled. It turn cold. Immediately, she knew where she had miscalculated.

Ra's' eyes hardened, and such a look was hidden behind them that she felt something inside of her sicken – and it was that same something that kept to them the roles of mentor and student. It was _this _that kept him from the role of father as much as it kept her from the role of daughter. She had wondered . . . she had wondered if Ra's had wished that it was his wife whom had been saved rather than his daughter. But it had only been a question before, half distant and unanswered. Now . . .

Talia let the cold flame in the core of her flare. The burn of it hardened her. She did not care about Ra's' regard for her. She _did not_. She simply needed him now – needed the lessons he could provide her, needed the resources he could offer her. It would not always be so.

"You overestimate the strength of some bonds," Ra's said, his voice carefully devoid of feeling. "It was once, but will it always be so?"

"Always," she insisted without thought, moving and ducking and _striking_. For that was the one truth in her that she held most dear – it was stronger than her hate, more real than her hope. It was tangible, and she nearly held it in her hands again. If only she could make the man before her _bend_.

Ra's struck, pushing on where Talia felt her muscles burn. He did not fall, he did not falter. He was like the walls of the Pit, pitiless and unmovable, and Talia bared her teeth in defiance and vowed _you will not break me _as she had then. And he continued, "You were nothing more than an oddity to him. You were something to pass the time with, a last shred of humanity in a place where men had none. I doubt he even remembers you, if they left him alive by some miracle."

And his last words were a real fear in her mind. It sickened in her as she remembered Bane's eyes watching her as the sea of angry men with clawing hands and evil fingers drew him under, like the tide pulling at the waves who desperately reached for the shore . . .

And so she hit and pummeled and struck as her heart thumped out a sick tempo in her chest. But her feeling had made her blind, and all Ra's had to do was wait for an opening before landing a powerful blow on her side, sweeping at her feet at the same time in order to take her balance. She faltered, trying to stay upright, but it was useless. Her arms windmilled for a moment, not accepting her fall before she gave into gravity, hitting the floor of the dojo hard enough so that the wind was taken from her.

Ra's flew down after her, his hand held to her neck in order to finish the bout. But Talia narrowed her eyes, and from the sleeve of her tunic she loosed a blade that should have been forbidden in the sparring circles. She thrust up as he came down, moving so that the flat of the blade ran against Ra's side just as he pressed down on her throat – a warning.

Ra's shook his head, but there was pride in his eyes as he lifted his hand from her throat, yielding. It was close, but if the fight was true, Talia was not sure which of them would have landed their wound first.

He rose, and for a moment she stayed flat on her back, staring up defiantly. "I was more than a novelty to him," she said when she had finally caught her breath, addressing his last words to her.

"Oh?" Ra's snorted, even as he offered a hand to help her up. "And what was that?"

She held his stare (and she did not think about Bane's eyes, not on the sky, but on her. She did not think about his wide mouth and the curve of his smile. She did not think of the weight of his hand on his shoulder - _love_ brighter than the sun in a place that had none but the false light to look to from above), and got to her feet without his aid. Her side still ached from where Ra's had not pulled his strength, and her breath hurt in her lungs, but still she said, "I was _hope,_" in a voice that struck. That was the single thought at the core of her – the ignition point of the flame that kept her going, and she refused to dishonor that - even with her words.

She sheathed her dagger in her sleeve again – _his_ dagger, still carried from all of those years ago, and its weight was a balm against her skin. She turned, and walked away without looking back, leaving Ra's to watch her go with a look in his eyes she could not discern.

.

.

She climbed to the roof that night when the walls and ceiling of her room became too much for her to take.

The air was frigid outside, the temperature falling until it was dangerously cold, but she couldn't feel the mountain's bite. Her skin was hidden under layers of thermal wear, the heavy wool and fur lining her hood and sleeves keeping her body's head close. Her still growing hair tickled her neck from where it was tucked under the layers she wore. The tresses were longer now, past her shoulders and just starting to curl at the ends. A few strands had escaped her braid in order to dance in her face, playing a strange waltz with the unwelcoming wind around her. The breeze was stiff - as if the mountain was trying to howl and sing to the sky above, but no snow fell. Instead, the night sky was perfectly clear, and the view of the stars was breathtaking from their high place in the peaks.

Talia tilted her head back, and looked up, naming the ones she could and imagining names for the countless others.

In the Pit, they hadn't been able to see many stars, but Bane had arranged pebbles on the ground, and had told to her the names of as many as he could remember. He told her of their dance across the cosmos, the way gravity and the song of time carried planets in their thrall. He told her of the way the moon controlled the oceans, the tides – and she, who could not comprehend the idea of the sea could not understand the concept of such an immense space beyond their world. Not then. But now . . . carefully, she picked out the Hunter, the three stars of his belt painfully bright to behold in the clear night sky. While so many cultures thought the stars of Orion to be a warring figure, Bane had given her a small smile and instead told her of the Rigveda, how the rishi who wrote those hymns called that constellation _Mriga_- the Deer, that which was hunted, not that which hunted. There were always many views to a whole, he had told her, and he had bid her to remember that.

Above her, the stars danced, and she followed them with her eyes. She read their story as they told their tale to any who would listen below.

And a voice in her mind whispered, _the stars to planets, and the moon to tides_ . . .

Her breath hurt in her lungs, it was heavy from more than the thin night air.

The next morning, she left, alone and determined, convinced that the shadows would follow her.

.

.

Of course, Ra's al-Ghul caught up with her right outside of Kathmandu. There were no words of anger in his mouth, just a sharp look of disapproval in his eyes. He brought only a dozen men, but a dozen men of the League were equal to many a small army, and Talia nodded her gratitude rather than speaking it aloud.

Her father did not try to drag her back to their temple in the mountains. Instead, he set his maps on the table between them, and showed to her a better course than the one she had been traveling. He paused for a heartbeat, the shadows from the lamps throwing his shadow in dancing patterns against the walls, and finally he asked about the Pit in detail. He asked about its shape, its schematics, the numbers of the prisoners, the guards - the secret places in the back tunnels, the high parts and those low. And, together, they planned their attack. Tactics were a new thrill to Talia, who had been studying the subject in theory, but had never practiced in actuality, and the ease of command and strategy was one she would later take out and better examine when she had time and quiet enough for thought.

For now, though, they were close enough to the Pit so that she could recognize the change in the air around them. Old senses, long dormant, opened back up, reminding her of half forgotten tastes and scents and sounds. She inhaled, and the dry scent of the desert bit through her nose. The sand that flew with the breeze cut against her skin like the rendering of tiny claws, making her skin itch. The weight of the sun as it shone against this cursed part of the word and the open wound of the sky above . . . both were truths that she knew better than the shape of her own face.

"Are you ready for what you will find?" Ra's finally asked as the morning sun dawned above them, and Talia lifted her eyes in order to catch the light.

She rolled Bane's dagger between her fingers, the blade slipping with the ease of familiarity against her skin. "It matters not," she said as the light chased the shadows across the sand. "He has been ready for too long, and that is all I care for."

Ra's nodded slowly at her answer, and turned from her.

She inhaled, the breath full in her lungs. It was time, then.

.

.

The ruins of the warlord's city were smaller than Talia remembered them. Before, when she was just a child looking upon the world for the first, the crumbling edifice had dwarfed her, even more impressive than the city that had sprawled, new and fertile, beyond it. Now, years later, the remnants of the great city no longer seemed as menacing as they had when she was a child. The ground was not an evil thing spreading out underneath her feet. The horizon was no longer unending, keeping even the earth from reaching up to touch the sky above. Instead, the great stones of the land were just lost travelers in the desert, wandering without reason or aim. They remembered, and held ghosts and empty things rather than flesh and blood and soul.

And while Ra's traced the shape of the ruins with his eyes, no doubt seeing the ghost of his wife in every twist and turn of the stone and mortar, Talia looked down and down and _down_, and prayed to whatever deity would listen that she too would not gaze on the ruins and find her loved one a memory.

"I had vowed never to return here," Ra's said softly, speaking more to the wind - to a ghost whom Talia could not see or feel - than to his daughter. His face was tight, closed off, but his whispered words held the closest thing to real emotion that he would ever show. His voice echoed, being caught by the breeze and tossed back to his mouth, as if the ghost he addressed had heard and mourned as deeply as he.

A heartbeat passed. The wind threw loose strands from her braid the same as it cradled her fathers words. She looked over at Ra's, and let herself share a corner of his pain - the mourning lasting only until one of the men in black lifted his hand and announced that the cables were secure. She slipped into her harness then, memories of Melisande fading from her as her heart hammered, rising up into her chest as if trying to escape through her mouth. Her blood thundered in anticipation, her veins slipping with feeling and adrenaline and the fear that every creature had of falling . . .

She closed her eyes as she stood on the lip of the Pit, and remembered being a child all of those years ago – she remembered jumping and grasping for freedom with too tiny hands. She remembered _soaring_.

And again she jumped, and let the air of the Pit reclaim her.

She fell, down and down and _down_, and around her there was a whistling sound as her harness caught, as the ropes of the men around her slipped through the air like a dozen serpents uncoiling. There was a louder sound then, a gross parody of hail in a storm as bullets rained, and then there was nothing but _screaming _as her father's men fired into the mass of inmates like maggots reclaiming a festering wound, taking the dead flesh and consuming it.

The sound of screaming rose, drifting up to the heavens – the screams of the fighting, the hurting, the dying, and yet Talia could not see the mouths that screamed. She could only look _down_.

In the end, her friend was easy to find amongst the masses where she had feared that he would not be. He was a calm spot, a still thing in the storm. Bane was motionless, the only one of the Pit's denizens not shouting at the sky, the only one not falling to the whistling of bullets in the air. Instead, he was calmly sitting out in the open space of the pit's floor, right by the stairs that climbed up as far as they could. And he stared, his eyes unblinking upon the sky above.

He was just so still, Talia thought, feeling her throat turn tight on her as she undid the buckles to her harness with fingers that shook. Her movements were clumsy and slow, and her father, not crippled by feeling as she, made it to her friend first - following her eyes and knowing the man she sought instantly. Moving slowly, as if approaching a wounded animal, Ra's knelt down in the sand, bringing himself eye to eye with the the creature who did not start at the sound of guns, who did not move to defend himself from the vengeful angels who seemingly flew down from on high. At first, Talia could not understand why he was so still, why he was so listless, and then Ra's held out a hand to the rags that covered his face, and even the gentlest of pressures had them soaking with _blood_. Ra's' eyes were calm at the development, even as hers flashed like a hunting creature's, seeing only that her friend was in pain, that he was not _whole _from where she had left him all of those years ago.

Talia fell to her knees at her father's side, and instantly her hands were on Bane, her fingers hungry things as she felt over his arms and the slope of his shoulders. _I remember, I remember_, her body swore - her body swore and her skin ached and her fingers rejoiced. But the eyes before her were hazy and unaware as they opened. They were clouded. They gazed past her, to the sky beyond.

There was a sob in her throat when she saw the blood that was dripping from the cloth that covered his face, and barely, just _barely_, she felt Ra's' hand on her shoulder. "He is drugged, Talia. I doubt he can see you, let alone discern who you are."

She shook her head, unable to answer, and determinedly she shook away the haze that had settled there. She breathed, and felt the crippling fear and the weakness that feeling so brought. She shook her feeling away and called on the cold flame at the core of her. _Balance_, she whispered fiercely to herself. _Balance _she needed, and then and only then would she be of use to her friend.

This time, when she moved to secure the harness around Bane, her hands did not shake. They were cold, methodical, as she then did the straps to wrap around her body as well, shooing away her father's attempts to help her. She had once ascended from this hell under the strength of her own fingers, and now, when he was finally to rise after her, she wanted it again to be of her own strength, just as she had once drawn on the strength of him.

His breath was deep in his chest when she moved him, even as she tried as hard as she could to be gentle. His breath wheezed, as if bearing through a great pain. His eyes rolled back in his head and closed, useless to the world around him, and at the boneless feel of him – he who was always stone and mountain and _sky_ to her, Talia bit her own tongue to keep the feeling in her from rising and suffocating her. Desperately, Talia yanked on her rope, and thought up, up, _up_. She had to get him _away_. She had to get him _out_. They had to stop the bleeding, and he needed to_ open his eyes again_.

They started to rise, and Talia held him close as they made their ascent. Her arms were strong around him where he could not be, and she needed to breathe around the lump in her throat or else she would be useful to no one, and -

He opened his eyes. She had forgotten how grey they were as the haze clouding them cleared, just barely, swallowing the sky above where all around was dust and stone and blood . . . Her name was a gurgled sound in his throat. He could not get it out. She remembered the blood, soaking through his scarf, and she tried to force a smile onto her face, for him, always for him . . .

"Just like Icarus, my friend," she whispered as the sky fell in upon them.

"But you kept your wings." His lips stretched to make the words. He tried to smile - she could tell from the way the blood coated the clothe that covered his face with a new vengeance, soaking it through as he forced the sound from his mouth. She could feel his heart hammering, and fought the urge to close her eyes against the agony she could feel in the loose cast of him.

"I had one last flight to make with them," she said, her words like a vow fulfilled as they approached the lip of the Pit.

He was unconscious by the time they made it to the top, though his eyes stayed open as long as they could, drinking in the sky as it came closer and closer and _closer_, and finally, Talia was slapping the hands of her father's men away in order to pull him onto the sand herself. Her heart was hammering, fit to consume, and her eyes were like those of an animal as she bared her teeth and saw to him herself. "He is _mine_," she said fiercely, like some hunting cat protecting her prey, scrambling to kneel on the sand so that she could cradle his head in her lap.

Her hands trembled as she pulled down the cloth that covered the lower half of his face. It stuck, pulling sickly with a trail of blood and saliva and some sort of poultice that the doctor had been treating him with, and -

"Oh gods," she breathed, though she believed in none, and in that moment she wished she had one name to address as her stomach turned and she _prayed_.

"_His face_," one of her father's silent men – normally shadows, flickering and emotionless – breathed, matching her prayer. A murmur went up, one that was silenced as Ra's glared, waving his hand as he cut the words away as one would slice through flesh to find bone.

His face . . .

His mouth was nothing more than shredded flesh, fresh blood seeping out lazily from where the skin had long since scarred over. The scars webbed and traced and cut into each other, consuming his mouth from the curve of his chin up to the bottom of his nose. She looked, and saw where that too had been broken, where his jaw had been shattered, where teeth had been lost . . . There was scarring _everywhere_, it never ended, even on the scarce amount of skin she could see . . .

_For me, for me, for me_, a voice in her head mourned. _He would not suffer so if it had not been for me_.

Talia closed her eyes and remembered his smile, the way it hooked and rose on his face as she made her ascent, and then the men around him had swallowed him like a wave, and -

"Home," she said without realizing she spoke. "We have to get him home. The healers, they can fix him, they can fix this."

Ra's put a hand on her shoulder, and she started at the contact, looking up. "Talia," he said gently. "There are some things that can't be fixed."

"Nothing would need to be fixed had it not been for me," Talia whispered the words. "I cannot . . ."

The cold flame in her was rising. It was blazing - a white heat that built behind her bones, in her very soul. "The doctor," she finally said in a voice that slithered and wound like ivy. "The scars . . . they were inflicted by the men, but the nerve damage, the infection . . . It is _his_ fault. My friend would not suffer so if not for _him_."

The cold heat consumed her, and she let it rise in her throat until she held it in her mouth. It was hate, not anger as Ra's would define it. It was _hate_, hot and feral and burning in her bones, as fierce as it was the day her mother had been taken from her. It clawed and ate at her and rather than draw her lips back and _scream _as she wished to do, she ordered coldly, "Take all from him as he has taken from my friend. An eye for an eye," in a voice that seethed.

Ra's was watching her with a look she could not name. "It is balance," she explained in a low tone, just smothering the edges in her voice so that it came out cool, all the desert at sundown while inside she ached like the barren ground covered over by the noon sun. "It is _justice_."

"In a way," Ra's said carefully, but even so, he waved a hand, and his men jumped to do as she bid. "But not only for this." And his next words were cold - cold as her words were cold, and she knew it was not only for Bane that the doctor would suffer. It was for Melisande. It was for the child she had left behind. It was catharsis for the guilt that no likely ate at Ra's' soul the same way the cold flame ate at hers.

In the end, she did not care for the hows and the whys of her wishes being carried out. The doctor screamed from the Pit below, and the prisoners left alive howled their rage to the skies while those still dying moaned and cried their pain in a sacrifice of lips to the heavens above. And Talia held Bane close like a vengeful god, cradling his head to her chest, feeling the blood from his mouth soak her tunic even as she felt his breath, dim and soft and hardly there, but still alive. Alive, he was _alive_.

And so Talia held on to him, and felt the flame inside of her cool, but just barely.

.

.

The healers in the mountains had seen many things pass their way from the Demonhead's ranks throughout the years, but never had they treated a man who had no face left to him.

After a whole day of treating and prodding and incense and chanting, the head monk came and whispered of the damage. There were ribs that had not healed properly, a bone in his arm that had to be rebroken in order to set properly. His body was covered in scars – up and down his spine where a blade had been dug in deep and then dragged, again and again over every limb. There were so many scars and scrapes - over and over again over every inch of flesh, the largest scars minus the ones on his back and face were on his chest where a lung had been punctured and badly healed. And then his face . . . it looked as if someone had tried to dig his mouth out with a rusty blade, and between the infections that still raged and the nerve damage that had not been properly treated . . . The scars still bled sluggishly. They were inflamed. And that infection had spread . . . The infection they could fight. They could even win over time. The nerve damage . . . he was in constant agony, and only a steady supply of opiates had been the thing to help him cope in the Pit. Talia had closed her eyes upon hearing so, and cursed the Doctor once again, wishing that they had taken more than just his eyes from him.

When the healer left, all he could do done for the night, she sat by Bane's side. With one hand she held his own from where they had been crossed over his chest. With her other she just barely traced the bandages that covered his face, now clean, mapping out the shape she remembered from before, the shape that would never be again. She didn't dare place any pressure down, instead her touch ghosted. It claimed and remembered and mourned as Talia rediscovered what had been lost to her for years.

Some of the scars she knew the stories to – some she had witnessed, had helped him treat with the tender sort of knowledge that they had been born and suffered in her name, for her sake. Some scars were new – from scuffles and scrapes and the day to day life of the Pit. But most of them . . . most of them she could date to the day she left, the men of the Pit having taken their pleasure in blood where they had been denied in flesh, and he had suffered greatly so that she would be spared the fate of her mother . . .

"He suffers greatly," Ra's said then, his voice an echo of her mind, interrupting her thoughts like an arrow through water. His voice was quiet as he watched her, his eyes distant. "It would be for the best to end his suffering."

She felt her breath catch sharply in her lungs. Like a knife.

"No," she said with her exhale, the one word nearly savage on her tongue with the low insistence it held. His life was _hers_. It had been since the day he had sworn it without words, sparing her, sheltering her . . . Their's was a symbiont circle, and she could not – she _would not_ let him go until his last breath left his body of its own volition.

"Daughter," Ra's shook his head, his voice almost gentle around the appellation, and she closed her eyes upon hearing it for the first. A low pain in her gut rathered that he would not swear to it when he did not feel it to be so, that he did not use it but to gain a stride in an argument. "It would be mercy. I urge you to put aside your own feelings . . . and let him go. It would be a kindness to him."

The words struck. She squared her mouth against them.

"You place him in more pain this way," Ra's said next, the disapproval thick in his voice. "You prolong his suffering – he may not make it through this night, or he may take months to heal. _Months_, months of pain and agony to add to the years he has lived with this blight."

"The pain has made him strong," Talia said, her voice finally calm, her voice finally level. She did not cry. No more. "He will continue on as he has, and be the better for it." _Suffering builds character_, Ra's had said the first time he had faced her in the practice ring - when Talia had bruised and bled like a child who had went against a wolf. She had agreed with his words then, and she still did - she knew the truth of them better than most.

Ra's shook his head at her refusal to comply. When his jaw set stubbornly, the shape it made was the same as hers. "No man can take so much without leaving what they were behind for what the pain creates. Humanity survives, but it morphs, it adapts, and you may not like what surviving and suffering will turn him into."

_Like the pain had to her_, she thought, though she did not say. Her pain and suffering and _adaptation_ had thrown her as a cold and shadowed reflection of the wife Ra's had once known. To some extent, Ra's' words were true of himself even, and at the thought, Talia looked down at the hand she had placed over Bane's, and wondered if Melisande would have even recognized her husband had it been she who had survived the Pit in place of her daughter. Would Melisande have known the little bit of Henri Ducard that was lost behind Ra's fierce devotion? Behind Ra's conviction? Behind his hate? It was a question Talia knew not the answer to. She doubted it was a question Ra's himself would have known how to answer without facing truths that he would rather not.

"I will take whatever comes from his survival," she whispered her answer, swearing it even still. "In any form, in any way . . . Father, you must understand that." It was the first time she had addressed him as such since the first, and finally, the calmness and clarity in her voice was a strength. She closed her weakness away, and looked on Bane with dry eyes. He would live, she had decided. Anything else was unacceptable. Not after all they had gone through . . . "Would you have smothered any little bit of Melisande had she survived what they did to her? Would you not have taken her less than whole and refused to let go until you had no other choice left to you?"

Ra's waited a moment. A heartbeat. His eyes narrowed, thin, icy slivers in a chiseled face. Talia narrowed her own eyes in return. In that moment, she was a reflection.

"Then let him live," Talia said simply where her father could not answer. Her voice was a stone in her mouth. She ached and mourned and suffered each painful breath her friend breathed at her own, and yet she could not . . . she _could not_ yet let that pain go. "Let him rise."

Ra's said nothing, just looked between the broken man and his daughter for a long, long time. He stayed until, beyond them, the sun disappeared fully behind the mountains. Without a word still, he stood and took his leave, and Talia listened to his footsteps until she could hear them no more.

.

.

In the end, she thought it fitting that the first time she slept in a real bed, he did as well.

The healers had made their last round for the night - all they could do to make Bane comfortable done, and yet Talia had found herself reluctant to leave his side when the time came. She was as she was as a child once more, and she did not want to know the space away from his shadow. She thought of her little room, of the hard floor and the incense she still burned for comfort. She hooked her jaw, her decision easily made as she kicked off her boots, and shedded the thick wool tunic she wore in favor of the simple cotton tank-top she had underneath. The bed he was on was narrow, as all were in the healer's wing, but she was used to threadbare cots and the stone floors, and the softness of the mattress and the thick blankets was a luxury unused to for her – for him, even more so, being further placed from such things than even she.

He did not stir as she carefully folded her much smaller frame in against his. She tucked her face into his chest and reached over to drape one of his arms around her, careful not to disturb the tubes the kept him sedated, that fed him where his mouth could not.

Her breath was shaky, but his was deep and rumbling and constant against her cheek. It anchored her. It calmed her, even as her eyes grew damp and her throat ached around the stone that had gathered there. She had one hand over his heartbeat, as if assuring herself that if he was there, then all would be well. Her other hand she rested on his side in a sort of half embrace, sharing his heat as much as she gave of her own. She imagined that his breath came that much easier when she was near, but that much was sentiment, even she could admit. It made the stone in her throat burn. It made her lungs ache.

Her dagger was forgotten, resting where she had tossed it into one of her discarded boots. Even without its comfort, she still felt safe, utterly content for the moment, even though exhaustion and concern and regret still swirled in her veins. They were kept at bay for the moment - for the night. She closed her eyes, lulled by the rise and fall of his chest, and that was the first true night of sleep Talia had had since escaping the Pit all of those years ago.

When she slept she dreamed of flying with wax and feather wings over the desert far below. But there was a shadow joining hers over the ground as she stayed carefully away from the sun. She flew that night, and finally, she was not alone.

.

.

In the small hours of the morning, she stirred briefly, feeling one of his arms tighten about her, his body reaching out to hold her instinctively, even in his sleep.

She woke to find one of his hands in her hair, and she felt half a smile when she realized that he had never seen her as such before. But sleep was heavy, and she was reclaimed by it once again until the morning broke.

.

.

Nearly a month passed before the healer devised a way for Bane to walk amongst the living once again. His plan was an idea at first – a faint sketch of a mask, complete with tubes and conductors that would keep him permanently at rest, that would keep his damaged nerves perfectly numb. It was a tricky balance, keeping one forever drugged and drunk, and that alone could kill him more slowly than any wound they could try to treat – the side effects could be even more than that, for it was not a normal blend of drugs that would keep to Bane his sanity. The healer simply called it venom – pressed and developed from their years of studying the fauna of the world, the poisons and illusive things that belonged to the floor of the earth.

He would be strong, the healer warned. If he rose above the haze and sharpened his mind, the strength he could bear would be unparalleled by mortal men. Even aging would be doubtful, the healer theorized, and Ra's, who had lived with immortality in its many forms, turned to his daughter and asked her to consider that fate more than anything else.

Then again, the device could possibly not work at all, and the venom that would save him could also destroy him. That too was a sobering point, a point that made her clasp her hands together and will her blood to be still. Yet, in the end, there was not any choice in her mind. She would see Bane whole again, in any form. The means meant nothing to the ends.

_He will know no pain?_ was all that she asked when the healer finished speaking. It was all she needed to know. _He will know peace?_

_He will not know pain_, the healer answered carefully, and she nodded her understanding.

He would no longer ache on her account, she decided. He would no longer bleed, at least, not from wounds of old.

When the healer finally presented his finished design, she held the mask, eying its bulk and size. It would completely cover the ruin of his face, leaving one to guess whether or not his skin was whole underneath. The straps were thick and black, and the tubes around the mouth carefully covered a grate that would let him breathe, breathe in air that would always taste of metal and medicine, and at the thought she ached. His voice too would be stolen from him, and as she held the mask up to her own face curiously, she wondered what her friend would sound like when he was returned to her.

It was a cage as much as he had ever suffered, a part of her mourned. But it would heal him. It would allow him to walk and live once again, and that was all that she could think of in the end. It was all that she could let influence her decision.

By the time the doctor was ready to mount the mask for the first time, Bane had been weaned off enough of his sedatives so that his eyes were half open and hazy, dulled by pain as he looked at the world around him as one who had only known one place, one time, for much too long.

And so, she stood by his side, and ran the pad of her thumb over the ruin of his face, one last time. "It will all be over soon, my friend," she said, her voice calm, her words level as she gave her vow to him. "I promise."

His smile was bloodied and weak, and his eyes rolled with such a pain as he gazed at her. But still he tried. For her, always for her, he tried. She could feel the shape of his mouth underneath her fingertips. She tried to memorize it, to hold it with her for the time to come.

For it was to be the last time she would see his face for a long, long time.


	3. into a scabbard tucked

**Author's Notes: **Hello my dear readers! I have to stop and take a moment before the chapter to thank-you for your amazing support! I replied to those I could individually, but this was my record for anonymous reviewers, and since I could not say so privately here we are now - thank-you for reading and taking the time to leave your thoughts.

This chapter ended up being a wee bit of a beast, even compared to the first two, and that is even after I split it in two (I know, my muse has _words. _Shush), which means that this story will clock in at six parts now, rather than five. You have my permission to cheer. :p

And, on that note, I wanted to take a moment to say that since these chapters as so huge, they take a lot of effort to churn out - and that means it is always going to take some time for me to update. More than the writing process is the time it takes for editing these chapters and I am going as fast as I can. Thank-you for reading, and don't worry too much about updates - this story has swallowed my soul in the best possible way. ;)

And, that said, on to the story . . .**  
**

* * *

**III. "into a scabbard tucked"**

She knew the mask had worked when her friend awakened, not with silence, but with a gasp.

Instantly, Talia herself was awake, snapping upright from where she had fallen asleep kneeling at his bedside. Her knees ached from the hard wood floor, and her fingers were stiff from the night's chill, but her eyes were bright and instantly searching as they snapped to her friend's face – looking above the hard black shape of his mask to find his eyes.

Her heart gave a sick twist in her chest when he finally caught her gaze. Sadness and such a sharp, staggering sense of _joy_ warred for supremacy in her until the joy finally won. It was a new emotion in her – an intoxicating sensation that left her fingers tingling and her skin warm. She could finally see _him,_ she rejoiced. _Him_, and not a dull, lifeless figure who bore the face of her friend. It was the first time since she had fled the Pit that she had looked upon him, and saw _Bane _staring back in his eyes. _It had worked_, she rejoiced. The venom had done its work, and now Bane looked at her with awareness and understanding - the feat as monumental as the ocean draining through a seashell.

And then her joy sobered. Grief cut through her euphoria like a blade as his eyes widened, and his hands came up to touch his face . . .

"What is this?" he asked, speaking for the first time since they had made their ascent. His words came out slow and slanted, as if he had to work around his confines – the ruin of his mouth and the weight of his mask – in order to speak them.

"It is a mask," she felt her words spill out of her mouth, one and then the other, speaking her childhood tongue – a language she had not spoken in what felt like so many years. "The mask . . . It is to keep you from feeling pain. It delivers a compound that numbs your wounds and keeps infection at bay. We were not," her voice faltered. It was thin in her mouth. "We were not sure that your body would accept it. It could have killed you . . . but here you are, with your eyes open and aware upon mine . . . I have missed your eyes, my friend." She laughed a little, the sound sparking half mad on her lips, forced as she was to find humor in the face of such a dark situation.

The mask twitched upon his face, just barely, as if the muscles underneath were trying to move. They were searching, feeling out new sensations and committing them to memory until they became second nature to his skin. Bane's fingers traced over the twists and tangles of the mask, creating a picture in his mind's eye where his own eyes were blind to see, and Talia felt the sharp feeling in her gut intensify. It twisted, like a blade.

"It is only a first crude effort," she said next, speaking quickly so as to distract him – to give him something to concentrate on other than the feel of metal and leather closing him in. "The next models should be less cumbersome – more comfortable. Does it pain you?" she asked, her voice pitched with her concern. "Is it too loose? Too tight? I can fix that now."

She raised herself up on her knees, leaning forward so that she could find the straps that held the mask to his face. Halfway through the motion, one of his hands left his face in order to catch her arm by the wrist. His grip was strong, surprisingly strong, and she instantly went still out of instinct as much as anything else.

Talia tilted her head, waiting for him to speak, but she only heard the sound of his breathing, low and labored through his mask. She did not push him to utter the words she could see battling in his eyes. Instead, she waited.

"My apologies, but it is hard to speak," when he spoke, his voice wheezed, the air filters catching the sound and perverting it to something garish - apparition shaped, as if stolen from some child's nightmare. Even still, its cadence was oddly rich and warm as it hissed and whirled in her ears. It was not Bane as she had known him, but she could hear traces of him in the shape and timber of his syllables - it was still _him_ underneath everything else.

"That sound . . ." Bane echoed her thoughts, and even though his voice was so much different, she could hear the perplexment in his voice. Its shape was a familiar one to you.

"Is nothing more than your voice," Talia finished for him, her voice firm. "_Yours_. And the sound of it matters little if it means that you do not feel pain."

A heartbeat. She watched, and saw the corners of his eyes crinkle. She imagined that his mouth worked, trying to find his words."Have you seen beneath it?" he asked. She could not hear it in his voice, but she could see it in his eyes that he dreaded her answer.

She locked her jaw, considering just how to reply. Her eyes flickered, falling down, and he read the truth in her silence before she could discern what words to offer to him.

He was upset, that much she was immediately certain of. He did not speak, but his breath came too quick and too shallow, almost hiccupping until his mask struggled to keep up with him, the contraption wheezing and hissing with the effort it made. He sounded like he was hyperventilating, the stress and the shock of everything – from the Pit to now – finally catching up to him and sinking its claws into his still tender flesh. Alarmed, she leaned forward, ignoring his iron grip on her arm as she brought her other hand over to cup his face.

"Shhh, my friend, it is not worth the struggle," she tried to sooth, tried to lay the beast before her still with nothing more than her words and the whisper of her touch. She tried to anchor him through the force of her will alone.

"How can you speak so calmly?" he finally wheezed out when his breath had quieted enough to allow him to say so. "It is a horror that lies beneath this; an abomination." Over her wrist, his grip was like iron. She could feel her bones grate together, and she raised a brow at the strength of him, wondering if it was simply his fervent feeling or the elixir in his veins that gave him such strength.

She did not fight his grip on her. Instead, she raised her other hand, and traced a curious finger over the rise and fall of the wires and the metal, over the smooth plates and the grating that covered his mouth.

"My horror, perhaps," she gave, her mouth crooked. "But then, you always have been." And that was all that she would say on the subject. She held his eyes like she would face an opponent, never looking away; and willed them to say much where her mouth could not. She did not apologize for the scars he bore in her name. She did not thank him for the sacrifice he made. She did not thank him for being the thing that made it possible for her to rise.

Instead, she leaned down to rest her forehead wearily against his, as she would have done when she was a child. His skin was warm. The leather of the mask was cool. A heartbeat passed, and she felt his iron like grip release her wrist. Her skin there ached. Later, she would check for bruises.

But, instead of pushing her away, he put his hand on her shoulder, as if uncertain that the shape above him was really her. His fingers curled against her, the barest of caresses, before raising just slightly to find her hair. His touch was curious, having only ever seen her shaved and boyish. Now she had a woman's tresses, nearly all the way down her back – she refusing to cut the length of it, even when her tutors had insisted that the locks would be a weakness in a fight. It would give an enemy something to hang on to.

But she did not regret her decision to keep it as Bane's fingers combed gently through her hair, curiosity and amazement and _awe_ like a flame in his eyes. She felt her cheeks flush at the attention. Her smile was something she could not keep from her face.

"My father would have you stay," she finally said after some time had passed, her body almost liquid in its peace as she kept her perch over him. "In gratitude for my safe passage through the years and then to freedom."

She felt his fingers curl in her hair. They hooked. A heartbeat passed, one and then another. "Where else would I go?" he finally said, his voice echoing from his mask.

There was nowhere else for him in the world, that much her travels had shown to her in spades, and at the thought a part of her mourned. But another part of her, a larger part, knew that it was not the bounds of necessity or a lack of options that tied him to her. It was more. Her lips turned up where his could not, and she pressed her finger to the grating that covered his mouth. It was warm. She imagined that she could feel him breathing. "Where else would you go, indeed?" she asked instead, returning his words with a smirk. _Hers, hers, hers,_ the cold flame inside of her sung, and for a moment that flame _burned_.

A rush of heat against her fingertip. A snort from him, then. "I will be nothing but a bane to you," still he promised. Still he vowed.

"Perhaps," she tilted her head. "But not yet."

.

.

The League of Shadows gives them a new purpose; a new direction, a new life.

In those first days, it was hard for Bane to walk, let alone do anything more strenuous than that. The first time he had tried to move from the bed on his own, he had hardly been able to stand without falling, and she had been sickened to see the full extent of his body's damage. More than the scars and the never-ending pain, their most imminent battle laid in the sickness that had seeped down into his muscles and his bones, stemming from so many years with his inability to move while plagued by the ruin of his face.

Slowly but surely, he learned to walk again. At first the steps he took were small, starting with small turns about his room in the healing wing. He refused to lean his weight on her when she offered, instead using the wall or a walking stick for support. She was brushed away when he fell, and she learned how to stand to the side and watch quietly each and every time he struggled to rise to his feet again. Her hands made fists at the unexpected lesson in patience and dignity, but she did not push when the hard cast of his eyes asked her not to. When he was well enough to walk past the healer's chambers, he chose to take his walks around the upper corridors of the east wing, she always walking a careful step behind him, offering her support in silence. He liked the high parts of the temple, where the balconies gave one an unparalleled view of the peaks around them. His breath misted as he inhaled deeply of the cold spring air. His eyes were wide as he took in the view of the mountains rising up before them. His mask had had to work in order to keep up with his breath as it came quick and heavy in his mouth. The sound was ragged in counterpoint to the howling sound of the wind through the canyon below.

And soon, he was not leaning on anything to walk, but rather walking on his own strength. Eventually, he started doing small things – things that she remembered from the Pit, sit ups and lifts with his body weight alone in order to slowly regain muscle and build strength. The trainers of the League were harsh, but no more harsh than the demands Bane put on himself, and as a result, slowly but surely, whispers started to wind of the man with the ruined face who was rising through the Demonhead's ranks.

Then, some time later, when he was finally strong enough to hold his own, Bane slipped into the day to day training that the others – Talia included – went through on the way to their initiation.

The days continued on like this. Every morning they were awakened early by the sound of a gong. They would wash their hands and faces and then head outside to jog on the glacier that cradled the monastery on the side of the mountain. Their lungs grew as strong as their legs with those runs, and the ice and snow became a teacher as much as the hard eyed sensei who watched them with critical eyes. After their run, they returned to the temple for a breakfast of rice and vegetables – which were grown in the hamlet below, and then the trainees would all break up to work with their own tutors for the day. Each member of the League had different talents, and each were given personal attention and consideration so that each part could better serve the whole. After lunch, a group of trainees would hike down to the hamlet and then hike back with packages and supplies– each assisting in the running of the monastery from day to day. Those who didn't make the run assisted in kitchen work or laundry or cleaning. They grew the crops that sustained them. They felled the animals who fed them. They mended their own clothes and cleaned their own weapons. After the menial part of the day, it was time for study, and then another run as the sun fell, before all would dine in the great hall for dinner – supping on more rice and smoked fish and hot green tea, before retiring for the night.

During those first few weeks, Bane had lingered behind the group of trainees during their daily runs, his mask struggling to keep up with his labored breathing. The thin air threw him, and his body suffered as the Pit tried desperately to hang on to its last inflicted horror. In those early days, Talia had loitered back with him, using her name and her glower to keep the whispers silent and the curious eyes staring straight ahead rather than behind.

And then, the day came when he was outrunning even her – carrying more weight than any other from the hamlet as if he were some beast of burden instead of anything mortal blooded and boned, never once blinking from the weight. Talia knew not when it happened – but soon her friend, whom she remembered as a rock, strong and unmovable – started to gain weight and keep it. He built muscle and strength, his tall and lean frame turning into something truly menacing, truly capable of causing destruction and hurt . . . The healer's warnings were fresh in all of their minds as Bane sharpened his mind in order to function past the venom that fed him, and he rose above the expectations of them all.

Together they grew, in more ways than one.

Some days, she was taught the art of patience by hanging upside down on the ceiling with nothing but the spikes in her gauntlets and the strength in her arms keeping her perfectly still, perfectly invisible, for hours. _What does this teach me?_ she had asked Ra's, not out of petulance but out of a thirst for knowledge, and her father had offered a small smile and said, _Patience._ It was the patient warrior who won not only the day to day scuffles, but the greater war that they all played their part in. _Like a slow blade_, he had said, and she had stayed still on the ceiling for the better part of the day – controlling her breathing so that she did not feel pain, did not feel fatigue, and reflected that this was one lesson that Ra's could offer her no more on. She had learned it already in the bowels of the Pit, and she could not bring herself to forget.

And some days, there was no combat training, but rather training of the body alone. They were taught agility and the gymnast's arts. She learned how to shape her body into forms she would have at one point thought freakish or impossible. Each muscle in her body was a weapon, and with the League she learned how to strengthen each and every one, how to use them to contribute to the whole until she could do things that mere men would call uncanny – impossible. But the impossible was merely a matter of applying oneself to its defeat; the walls of the Pit had taught her that many years ago, and under her father's tutelage, she continued those teachings until she could etch their dogma into her very bones.

And then, not at the side of any of the League's sensei, but rather at the feet of Ra's himself, she studied the movements of Alexander and Caesar; of Hannibal and Scipio, Sun Tzu and Attila the Hun and Cyrus the Great. Her father spoke of the Napoleonic wars as one who had fought in them. He lectured of the tactics of Charlemagne, the arrogance of Hitler. He schooled her in the ways of every massive army that had ever walked the earth – speaking of their strengths, their weaknesses, and finally, their downfalls. Long has it been to the League to keep balance in the world – theirs was a game of kings, Ra's said, and the men and the women of the League had long been used to cutting weeds away from the tree of humanity – and they would continue to do so until the world was free from injustice. She was taught tactics and war games - the sport of generals and cloak and dagger movements and _belief_. She was taught to embrace the League's teaching as her flesh and bones and skin; as her _everything_ . . . everything in her but for the cold flame at the core of her, ever burning.

The world would have to burn, Ra's preached to her and she took the words as her own. The world would have to burn, the fires purging it until only the righteous and the just stood poised to refill its shores. The fire would rise; the League would set it.

It was how it always had been. It was how it always would be.

.

.

Months had passed since she had brought Bane back with her from the Pit. It was a cold evening that they spent together, one where the blizzard winds raged outside, keeping all of the trainees indoors for the evening. Rather than building her body, she had her texts to read for the day – Julius Caesar's own memoirs, with Ra's neat hand having written in the margins, pointing out words to remember and others to discard. The words on the pages were still in Latin, as it was better than a translation for one to understand the original intention and meaning of the words. She had already poured through his seven missives from Gaul, and was making her way through the third book of the _Commentarii de Bello Civili._ She had the journal flipped upside down on her chest, forgotten for the moment as she laid on her back by the small coal burner in her room, the blankets from her bed again nested on the floor instead.

Bane sat cross-legged next to her, polishing and sharpening his arsenal of knives. He sat very close to her, the closeness between them born of the days from long ago, in the Pit, where touch was something both soothing and grounding, as necessary as breathing. They were alive, the touch said, and they were safe. They would continue to be so if they did not leave each other's shadows. Absently, Talia traced a nonsense pattern on his knee as she considered what she had read, the canvas material of his pants coarse under her fingers as she remembered the shape of a scar that dwelt beneath. When Bane would switch from one blade to another, his hand would pass through the ends of her hair – not a caress in intention so much as muscle memory being carried out, habit and instinct both entwined. She would turn into him in acceptance as much as anything else, and their odd dance carried on without ceasing, day after day. She knew that their bond was a cause for whispers – the Demonhead's daughter and her pet beast ever the topic of conversation, but long had there been such whispers about them, and in that, too, there was familiarity.

"I do not see why you even bother," Talia said then, her voice drowsy between the warmth of the burner before her and the contentedness that followed a day of hard work.

"With what, little one?" Bane asked absently, not turning to look at her as he inspected the tip of a blade. A billao, she narrowed her eyes to give the weapon its right name – a dagger from the horn of Africa, with a long straight blade and a buffalo horn as a hilt. The blade was wickedly sharp and strong, and she knew from experience that her friend knew how to do damage with it.

"With attending to the blades," she said, her voice shaped to tease. "My father is constantly cross with you for forgetting steel in a fight in order to use your bare hands."

Bane shrugged. "Who am I to look past my strongest weapon?" he asked before placing the whetstone down. He looked around, but Talia found it first, and handed him the sheepskin sheath for the weapon.

She sat up, carefully placing the journal down on the wood floor before peering over curiously at her friend's arsenal.

"And besides," Bane continued conversationally as he went on to the next weapon – a small knife with a crooked blade, "It is good to know any weapon one may face – even if that weapon is not the one you would prefer to use yourself."

"Wise words," Talia inclined her head. Her hair was loose for the night, it dipped into her eyes with the motion. "And yet, I do believe that that one is mine."

She looked more closely, and indeed, he did have a khanjar in his hands – a dagger she had gotten from her time in Oman, whose purpose was more for decoration than anything else. The blade was worn by men after passing from childhood – and it had been a gift from the family she had stayed with. More than that adulthood, it symbolized vengeance, and before she had left the sand swept lands, the patriarch of the family had bid her to do well to bank the fire in her eyes, lest it grow to consume her. She bit her lip at the thought, and wondered if she would ever return to return the blade once the fire in her died.

Bane raised a brow at the accusation. "Perhaps, you should not be so careless with your things, then."

"Perhaps," she said, mimicking his voice to the best of her ability, "you should not be such a thief."

"Says the child who could not go for minutes without searching my pockets for bread, all of those years ago?"

Talia rolled her eyes, and made a lunge for the dagger. Bane easily held it away from her, pushing back against her forehead as he did when she was a child trying to pry an apple from his hand. She bounced back and pouted. There was a veritable arsenal before her, and yet she was strangely slow to turn another of his blades against him in order to recover her own.

"I am not that child anymore," she said instead, looking up to catch his eyes, glinting as they were over the thick shape of his mask.

"Indeed?" Bane asked as she crossed her arms and glared. "Such a small thing you are before me – all petulance and ire."

She rolled her eyes and swatted at his arm. He moved the dagger further away still. "It is not fair," she said next, her mouth turning in a crooked line. "I do not remember you being so _large_."

He moved the dagger closer, a hairbreadth away from her searching hands. "And I do not remember you being so _small_."

"So small?" she echoed him. "I have grown a good half meter since those days – I am a child no more."

"Still so tiny," he continued as if she had not spoken at all. "Bird boned and glass limbed."

Her jaw hooked, recognizing the challenge when she heard it, all _the wall is too strong for you and these bars will always hold you tight _and so Talia moved. She struck, kicking at the lineup of blades before her, the sound distracting Bane who turned to look. When he turned, she used the millisecond she had in order to find that pressure point in the crook of his elbow that would lessen his grip, surprise more than anything else making it possible for her to find that second pressure point on the back of his hand in order for him to drop the blade completely.

The khanjar fell into her waiting palm, and Talia scurried a space backwards, holding the decorative weapon at the ready before her. "But not so weak after all. Yes, my friend?"

If he had wanted to, a true fight would have left her bruised and bloodied, but instead, Bane's chuckle was low in his mouth. It hissed from his mask. "Never that, little one," he said, his form relaxed and easy, and slowly, very slowly, Talia lowered the blade. "But then, I never said that you were weak to begin with."

He had not, she remembered, her pride assuaged for the moment. She dropped the blade completely, sheathing it before placing it to the side. Bane watched her for a moment before going back to tidy up the blades she had kicked, and a heartbeat later Talia moved to help him, tucking them into their places so that they could be put away for the night. As she moved, Talia felt the familiar weight of the weapon she kept strapped to her arm.

She bit her lip, and looked Bane out of the corner of her eyes. He was not looking at her, not at that moment, and she let her gaze linger – on the bare curve of his skull and the thick line of his brows, relaxed rather than pulled tight. While the shape of him before her was a stranger to her memories, he was as familiar as the breath in her lungs.

She inhaled, finding her center, before saying, "I still have it, you know?"

"Have what?" he asked, turning to look back at her.

Her smile quirked, and instead of answering, she brought out the dagger that he had given to her all of those years ago. She kept his eyes, even as they fell from hers in order to search out the weapon in her hands. With a reverence normally kept for those things holy, Bane reached out to take the small dagger from her – the blade that was once too large in a child's grip was swallowed by his. When he spoke, his voice was heavy, a stone that his mask forced into words. "I did not know you kept it."

"I am not one to pass over what has aided me before, Baldassare," she said, a vow lingering in her words to one listening. And Bane was, as always, listening. "For anyone or anything." For Ra's, or the curious whispers, or in favor of the dozens of pretty and exotic blades she could bear instead of the one she had strapped to her wrist.

Bane bowed his head, and she felt a moment like some ancient goddess accepting the piety of a priest. Her chest tightened. Her mouth ached as if she bore the same scars he did.

He leaned in close to her, and she pressed her forehead against his, resting one hand over the fist that still held her dagger. Her other hand she placed on the side of his face, touching both mask and skin as she felt her breathing slow and align with his. The hollow place behind her heart – where she placed her feeling and weaknesses – ached in that moment. She wanted to ask him if he was happy, if the League was what he wanted from his life or if it was another prison without bars – as much as the mask on his face was. But she could not force the words out of her mouth. They were a weakness on her tongue – a fear greater than any hate she had gnawing on her bones.

But his breath was strong and steady and constant before her, and the flame next to them was warm and heady, keeping out the mountain air. She inhaled, closing her eyes as he passed her dagger back to her. For that moment, if that moment only, she could close her eyes and pretend that all was well, and know that a part of her spoke and believed with the absolute truth.

.

.

Eventually, a time came when she looked at her friend within his mask, and could not remember a time before he had worn it.

The venom that the healers had worried would cripple her friend became the thing that granted him strength. As a child, she had known Bane to be strong; and his strength had kept him – had kept her – alive where others had fallen. His strength had been formidable, his mind keen – a genius lost in the sand, even Ra's had to admit when asked, the words bitten through his teeth as if their very utterance offended him.

Now, he was nearly unmatchable.

It was near noon that day, and Talia could still feel the cold sweat of their morning run beading under her tunic as she stood on the balcony overlooking the training rings with her father. Ra's sat on one of the benches lining the balcony rather than standing to reign over all below, but there was not one acolyte who was ignorant of his presence. He held a long Chinese sword in one hand, a whetstone in the other, which he ran over the long sweep of the blade, giving it a razor edge. The tip of the sword dug a small groove into the wood beneath them, eating away away more and more as it was rotated in its master's grip.

Below, there was a pit of pillars on one end of the floor – about three dozen wooden posts that had been sank in deep so that their tops came level with the floor around them. About twelve feet down there was another floor for any unfortunate enough to lose their balance – where candles and other flames had been lit to deter falling and to increase the adrenaline of the one sparring above. The candles were harmless to the many trainees who took a tumble through them, but a burn was a burn, and its hot kiss was nearly as bright as the shame of the one fallen.

Sparring on such uneven ground was intended to be a lesson in technique and agility, a practical application of the gymnast's arts they were all taught, but Bane managed to turn it into a massacre even so. Many at first glance would have made the dangerous assumption that the sheer mass of him would have been a black mark in such a fight, but his balance was as good as any of those he fought against, and often he managed to surprise with his bursts of speed and agility in a fight. Those who underestimated him felt their error in the most literal of ways - after all, it was never wise to prejudge an opponents abilities, especially in the heart of the Demonhead's temple.

Bane had started off by facing a half-dozen of the League's intermediate shadows, but he had defeated them all so easily that the sensei overseeing the bout had clucked in disapproval at his felled students, harsh emotion on his normally expressionless face. Watching the fight had been a fully trained squadron of Ra's men, just returned to the monastery after some mission, and the twelve men there had offered to teach the masked man some humility with the battle arts. The sensei had approved, and Bane had accepted the challenge.

So far, only three of the original twelve remained. A few had rather serious burns that would need attending to, and one bore a dislocated shoulder and an arm he would not have use of for the next month. There was one other unfortunate soul who would not be walking for some time. The mouthiest one – 'mouthiest' being mere whispers amongst Ra's men, as each were trained to the extreme – would need to see to some dental work, which Talia felt fitting indeed. A part of her wished she still had her bone necklace from the Pit. His molars would have made a most fitting specimen. If there was one left in tact, that was.

"Have you ever seen anything so extraordinary?" Talia beamed as she leaned over the railing to better observe the carnage her friend wrought, her voice breathless on her tongue. A part of her wished to clap her hands together and bounce with her pride, but she did not. Instead she stood perfectly still, only her eyes betraying her regard as they hungrily drank in every move her friend made. "He tosses them too and fro like the sea would toss a boat. And these men – they are your very own, are they not?" she asked, even though she knew the answer. "Just returned from Cairo, if Ubu's gossip is to be believed?"

Ra's was not so quick to praise as she. He did not look up at her from where he twirled his sword so that the end stuck in the ground. The blade swiveled, catching the light. A muscle in his jaw tightened.

Talia waited through his silence, and felt her own jaw lock - a reflection.

And finally, Ra's asked, "What did he do to deserve the Pit?"

A heartbeat passed. She blinked at the unexpected question, but then narrowed her eyes, wondering at the root of his words. For nothing Ra's ever asked was unnecessary.

"I do not know," she answered, speaking slowly. "He will not tell me."

Ra's raised a brow, but still he did not look at her. "And yet . . ." he prompted, hearing the hesitance in her voice.

Talia paused, considering, before finally continuing. "The others in the Pit . . . they whispered."

Beyond them, she heard the sound of flesh upon flesh. The splintering of wood. Talia felt her mouth quirk. Someone had to have truly angered Bane for that one.

Ra's frowned. He had heard it too. "And what did those whispers say?"

Talia paused for a heartbeat, letting her gaze fall to the fight below and linger. If she told Ra's these things, it would be because she wished for him to understand, not so that he could pass his own form of judgment, execute his own form of the law. Two now stood opposite of her friend on the poles below.

Ra's jaw tightened, and when she saw that he would bid her speak again, she beat him to it and said, "Some say that he was lowered down with the warlord's daughter. They say that where his leader could not protect what he valued most, one of his men took the task upon himself." She said that one to hurt, to aim and barb, and Ra's did not reward her with a flinch of his eyes. Some parts were too worn for that. At least, too hidden, instead, to wear his pain openly.

A cry of pain. Talia, looking at her father, could not see, but she felt her smile turn crooked upon her face. One man left then.

"Most, though, most say that he had always been there – whether for some crime committed long ago, or for being born in the depths, as I was. Men in the Pit fancied him immortal. No one remembered a time before he was there."

Ra's snorted, his sword made a metallic sound as it slipped against the ground. "He is not immortal."

Beyond them, there was the sound of a body hitting the ground. And then, there was no one left to face.

"No," she gave, "he is a man."

The fight had drawn to an end, Bane only standing where a dozen men had stood opposite them. Talia turned from her father in time to see him as he looked up, searching for them on the balcony. When he caught her eye, he reached down to pick up the sword he had discarded early in the fight, a smirk in his eyes where he could not do so with his mouth, prompting her to roll her own eyes in return. He saluted her father lazily, before turning to bow deeply to her.

She felt the corner of her mouth quirk up, pride in her veins as the healers came in from the shadows to take those wounded from the dojo.

"And you?" Ra's asked then. "What do you think?"

"I believe that he was born there, the same as I," she said the words slowly, reverently, speaking from the cold flame in the core of her. "He was placed there to raise me up, for he could do nothing else." He could do nothing but think of the light as blinding, the shadows as welcoming. He was a child of the Pit, born in hell, and only together were they able to rise, one and then the other. It was what she believed.

"Divine intervention?" Ra's snorted at the idea. "Fate?"

She shook her head. "As I said, it was merely what I believed." Believe and thought and _knowing_ – they were all different things, and yet, there was a religion of sorts to be found in her devotion . . . priests and pilgrims and devout, praying things.

Ra's shook his head, climbing to his feet only when the ring below them had cleared out. His eyes fell downwards, seeing the pillars that had been felled and the flames that had been extinguished. There was still an echo in the air, a chill - the sounds of pain that even the most callused of the League had been unable to hide lingering even after they were gone.

And as such, was it not easy for her to hold faith and belief in the face of such a force? She closed her eyes, and remembered her travels – the towering temples of Bagan; the holy river Ganges washing penitent ones of their sins; the family in Oman, praying with their faces in the sand, turning towards Mecca an unseeable distance away; the bright orange of a monk's robes; the sight of a cross, a dead man stretched on its beams with arms held open wide as if to embrace. _Sentiment_ she had always thought and scathed, but she knew devotion in other ways, other forms . . .

And she could not yet give up her prayer.

.

.

A day came to them, near the end of their first year with the League.

Talia did not know the exact day she was born, and her grip on her own age was hazy at best. She was seventeen? Eighteen at this point? Time had been so fickle with its passing in the Pit, both crawling and flying by at turns. She did not even know the exact day she escaped from the Pit, not learning the parameters of a calendar and its application until stealing aboard cargo ships and learning their routes a few months afterward. She did, however, know the day and hour and _second_ of when she had helped Bane ascend from the shadows.

And so, she used that as a day of birth – for both of them.

It was a relatively warm day in the mountains, still frigid but not unbearable. She and Bane climbed to her self proclaimed spot on the roof and took their supper away from the rest of the League before the warmth of a stubborn fire – burning hot even in the cold mountain air. For the special occasion, she had brought back a treat from the hamlet – servings of sakarni for both of them, a sweetened yoghurt and pistachio dessert, heavy with the taste of spices – cinnamon and nutmeg and saffron. The dish was one she had fallen in love with when she had first entered this area of the world in Kashmir, and the dessert remained a guilty indulgence she had been able to indulge in even in their haven in the mountains.

Bane always ate away from the rest of the League, and from her, at that. The simplest of day to day tasks took planning and care for his mask, he removing it and setting up an IV drip for everything from brushing his teeth to shaving and eating. He still sat with the others while they dined in the evening, and yet he had little care to expose himself to his brothers, even if they were all shadow bound and bred. She had brought the dessert in half to tempt him to removing his mask for the evening, hoping that he would open up in front of her, but that was a war she would still be waging for some time as he placed the offering to the side, content to sit and watch her rather than indulge himself. She had rolled her eyes at him, but his face was still a tender subject – a battle which she would continue to fight until he had no choice but to surrender. For she was stubborn, and patient besides, and Bane was not all unmovable stone and mortar. She knew that she could push the subject – she could command him, and he would expose his weakness for her, but she did not ask – wishing instead for him to decide when and where he would share all, as she already had.

And so, she sat and ate her sakarni while watching him with an open gaze. She continued to stare at him until he rose a brow – a more and more common expression without his mouth visible to others – and he called her out, "A picture may last longer, little one, and then I may be able to move freely without breaking your regard."

And the corner of her mouth quirked. "Your eyes are darker than I remember," she said simply, explaining her look. "I remember them blue – greyishly so – now, they are much darker. Nearly black."

Teasingly, Bane gestured towards the blade that she still kept in her sleeve. "If they displease you," the invitation was a taunt in his voice, daring her.

Her heart made an odd skip in her chest, as sweet as the dessert she savoured on her tongue. The knowledge that she held so much while offering so little lit an odd fire in her veins – one that was different than the cold flame at the center of her, ever burning.

"I spoke not to point out fault," she said, letting her words slither from her mouth. "I was merely unsure if my memory throughout the years was false . . . or if the venom in your blood has altered even that."

"I cannot say," he said simply, and she knew him to speak true. After all, there was very little to use for a clear reflection in the Pit, and after . . . she knew that Bane did not even keep a mirror in his quarters. He had no need to, no wish to. The colour of his eyes was undoubtably something he would not consider had she not brought it up.

At the thought, the corners of her mouth quirked. "They please me," she said softly. "So you may keep them, my friend."

"Never let it be said that the lady is not the soul of graciousness," Bane bowed his head, the gesture sincere even past the teasing – honoring her where he would no other, not even the great and terrible Ra's al-Ghul.

And Talia fiddled with her spoon, and knew that, if she wished him to, he would remove even his eyes from his face for her. The knowledge was a heavy thing, a weight on her shoulders like the snow upon the mountains, incubating as much as it smothered.

Her lungs felt tight, even as she let her smile stretch, her lips chapped in the cold and the twilight. "And don't you forget it my friend. Don't you forget it . . ."

.

.

They were in the Arabic peninsula some months later, fighting off a ring of warlords called the Twin Suns, when the fighting took a turn for the worse. The men of the League were ferocious, a sea fit to crumble any structure standing under the leadership of Ra's al-Ghul, but while the League itself was immortal, the men who made up its moving parts were not without fault and failing, and many fell that day underneath the sheer force of numbers they had taken up arms against.

As soon as it became apparent that they had been misinformed about the numbers of the Twin Suns, Ra's had yelled for Ubu to take her away – she, who had just started going out on active missions a scant few weeks ago - where Bane had been doing Ra's bidding for a few months longer than that (her heart in her throat and her mind screaming _weak, weak, weak_, at her when she found sleep and sanity fleeting during those long nights he was away from her). Finally, the corners of their work were something she was allowed to touch, but the chaos and loss of control that came with a full blown battle? No. Ra's would not have it.

Her father's wishes and Ubu's determination aside, she still managed to find her way back to them.

And, of course, her father was not the only one displeased to see that.

"What is the use of giving you wings when you know not when to make use of them?" Bane's voice rumbled deep in his chest, the sound forced where he did not have the time to make his mouth shape the words properly, preoccupied as he was. At his back, Talia could hear the sound of skin meeting skin, of bones giving way under the force of his assault. Her hands flashed, and her sword was a high counterpoint to the low bass of his moves. Her heart thundered in her chest, keeping beat to the battle.

"Where would I fly to?" she asked instead. "All I care for is here."

"Here," Bane said tersely, "is a battlefield that will be slick and red when we are done – and not only from the blood of our enemies."

Her smile turned crooked as she angled her blow and slashed right. Feinted left. It took the barest bit of pressure to break skin, but a considerable deal more to make it through flesh and bone. She had to be clever with the men who wore armored plates. It was a dance as real as any other.

"Precisely," she agreed. "So who are you to order me away from the feast?"

A low wheezing sound escaped his mask – what would have been quite the exasperated sigh had he still had the mouth of a normal man left to him. "You will be the death of me, Talia al-Ghul," he said instead, his voice rolling.

"But not today," Talia merely smirked, ducking left, and coming back up and around her opponent, finding his back and the open places there when he did not turn quick enough to follow her. A body on the ground. Another man surged forward to take its place – a man who did not have much time left to him as Bane abandoned his own fight in order to take hers – catching the man's thrown fist and snapping it back into his own nose. Another mighty shove and Talia heard the sound of a snapping neck. Her heart made a sick leap, even after all of the time she had spent next to death and suffering.

"He was mine," she chose instead to say, pouting out her displeasure at being thrown from her fight.

A raised brow was visible over the mask he wore, "And now he is not," Bane replied, banter coming easiest with adrenaline and the battle's blood haze flowing.

Talia's grin turned crooked. Another slash, another moment of steel finding flesh; another man felled who underestimated the girl child armed with sword and the Demonhead's name.

But it seemed that for every one of the Twin Sun's men they killed, another three surged in in place of that one felled. Men kept on pouring in – one after another after another, and Talia watched as her father commanded his troops and refused to retreat, ordering his men and regrouping them time and time again. She could see the rage that loitered around the calm cast of his eyes, the stone like blow of his voice – and she knew that a head or two would later roll for whoever had given the Demonhead faulty information. For that brother's error had taken the lives of his brethren, and such a thing was not to be tolerated – not after all that they invested to train and initiate the men they lost.

Talia was able to put a dent in the mass with Bane at her back – where he was like a tidal wave, sweeping and merciless, she was more like an undertow or strong current. She knew Bane as well as she knew herself, and the ebb and flow of them together was a force to be reckoned with.

And yet, that was she with her back to Bane's, making his shadow her own. As the battle wore on, she knew not how, but they were separated, and she found herself in the rather precarious situation with having her back to the wall and facing a four man group of the enemy. She bit her lip, and pushed on as she was taught – using her superior speed and agility to keep her one step ahead of the enemy swords. But she could feel the length of the battle and the relative inexperience she had with the way of war catching up with her. Her muscles burned and her throat ached, and in its place the cold flame at the core of her burned bright – it was effervescent, burning white and hot behind her bones as she bared her teeth and fought back.

And then, she felt another kind of heat – the burn of pain, hot and metallic as steel pierced through a weak point in her armor in order to find the skin high on her back. It was a small wound, but it bit enough to draw blood, and if she was fortunate enough to walk away from the battle alive it would scar. She shrieked with the pain, doubling over before striking at the man behind her with a savage blow, her blade finding the tender skin in his throat and _slicing_.

The man fell. The sound of a body hitting the ground mixed with the echo of her scream and the sharp scent of blood, and suddenly Talia found herself no longer cornered and wanting in the heat of the battle, but rather _reigning_. She hissed, an unholy sound, as she struck out against the men around her, her hate and her passion and her battlelust making her see only a white light before her eyes as she struck and found flesh and bone and took as if it was her own.

And yet, feeling made her weak, taking away the clarity that a cool and calm head could hold during battle, and she did not see the blade behind her, aimed for her heart.

But it never made its target, not like the one before. Bane, who had tried to make his way to her since the knife had pierced her flesh, had finally arrived, and rather than the blade finding its place, the strongman took the blow high on his arm, the knife sinking in deep to muscle and flesh. But he gave not a sign of its sting. He did not even yank the blade loose as he instead turned on those who had thought that they could do her harm.

She did not move to help him, instead staying still in his shadow, drinking in the ferocity that her in danger had moved him to strike with. Many in the melee had stopped to watch him – the monster loosed from his cage as droves of men happened upon him and were done away with as if they were ants before a tidal wave.

And Talia . . . she could only think that she had never seen a man move that way – more like something born of nature and her ferocity than anything mortal flesh and boned. He swung and clobbered and clawed, and when his blows missed the men he fought away from her, his hands took thick pieces of stone and mortar from the pillars that held up the base around them. It was a berserker's haze, as real as anything the ancient men of old would have fallen into in a quest to please their gods. But Bane had no salvation of that kind, he had only a girl whom he had declared his own, and one path that he kept to, straight and steady.

His vision was white, she could only imagine, her heart in her throat. It was like that time in the Pit all over again – the sea of men versus her friend, only this time, Bane rose above them all, and swallowed even the sea, roaring his rage, his eyes flashing his anger. His fists were bloodied, his mask had come loose in the melee, and Talia could only imagine the pain coursing through his veins. And yet, he would not _stop_. He would not _cease_.

The battle was dying down around them – Ra's having dispensed with the Twin Sun's leader, and the men having quickly executed the survivors that Bane had not yet gotten to, and all had silently gathered in order to watch Bane as he made quick work of the group who had thought to deal to the Demonhead's daughter a fatal blow.

The remaining men of the Twin Suns were holding their hands – they tried to surrender, and still Bane plowed through their ranks. He was pitiless, as much as the reigning sky above, and Talia would not have bid him stop if not for the ruined state of his mask – the coarse and sickening sounds his mouth made as he tried to gasp in air around the pain – his body betraying him in a more vile way than anything else ever could.

Finally, Talia moved. She ignored her father's warning, and the hands that reached out to hold her back, and she stepped into the center of the fire. She stood between the pleading men with their hands up and her friend when he wore violence in his eyes, and she simply held out a hand.

"That is enough, my friend," she said, not even deigning to raise her voice. She knew he would hear her. He would hear her, and he would break from his haze. Her heart was slow, lazy in her chest. The cold flame at the core of her was a low simmer, banked and waiting.

And Bane's fist stopped a heartbeat from her face. He blinked, as if trying to focus on her – as if trying to see her past the bloodlust and the pain. His fist loosened, and it was the curve of the back of his fingers instead that he let rest upon her cheek. It was with fondness that he moved that hand back to feel her hair – the thick coil of her braid, and lower still to where blood had pooled and started to dry on her armor.

"It is done," she whispered, seeing as his eyes sharpened again – an animal scenting blood and knowing rage – instinct taking over as fierce as anything else that could have been taught with sword and shield. "There is no one left to fight."

Her father's men were taking advantage of the moment of respite from the monster held in thrall by the slight girl – rounding up the remaining members of the Twin Suns and binding them, the spoils left to the victors to question and do away with properly when the time came. It was justice, it was _balance_, and Talia held Bane's gaze and let her own harden – not to be crossed. The men would live – for now, at any rate, until the Demonshead decided their fate to the contrary.

"It is done."

When he breathed, his breath was shallow and uneven, wheezing and wet. He had to work his mouth in order to form his words – as he had in those early days before they had made for him his mask. "You are hurt."

"A lesson learned," she countered instead. "It pains me not."

"You bleed," Bane repeated, his words – normally elegant and so beautifully flowing – made simple by the pain, by the hiss of gas escaping the conduits on his mask.

"So do you," she whispered, reaching out to rest her hand on the blade that was still embedded in his arm. At the touch, he flinched, as if just realizing the blade was there, and she watched the moment where the pain became too much for his body to handle. She was quick, catching him as he finally lost the battle he had been waging with consciousness. She was not strong enough to hold him upright, but she was strong enough to slow his fall – gesturing with a fierce slash of her head to the men who had been waiting for just that moment.

Around them, she smelled blood and rot and the thick scent of sand, but it no longer mattered. Bane was hurt, and the wound at her back burned like something living – adrenaline finally fading and letting her body know each and every place that she hurt and held tender. But it did not matter. The League had won, and a step more was taken for balance in the world. Later, there would be time taken for rejoicing, along with healing.

On the long plane ride back to the monastery, Talia sat at Bane's side and gently pressed the tubes she could back into place, critically assessing how the latest mask he wore held up under real combat situations. She tilted her head and frowned, taking in a large and exposed conduit that had come loose in the fight. "We shall have to find a way to ground this one," she said to her father, who was looking down on Bane with an expressionless face. "It is too much a weakness in a fight."

Finally, Ra's snorted. "Perhaps it would be a gift to the world to cut that cord now," he said instead.

And Talia narrowed her eyes, the tube smooth in her hand. Unconsciously, she leaned further still over Bane's body, glaring up at her father and daring with her eyes. "You may try," was all that she said, staring between the strands of hair that had fallen loose from her braid. Her skin was scrapped and bruised, but the blood she bore on her tunic was not her own. In her sleeve she felt the small knife Bane had given her all of those years ago. She could feel each tendon and muscle on her body, drawn tight, ready to strike.

And Ra's inclined his head. He did not take a step back, a graceful surrender. Instead, he looked Talia hard in the eye, and asked instead, "Why does this man mean so much to you?"

She hooked her jaw. She felt her gaze harden. "I have told you," she said in a voice that scathed, "that I would not be alive were it -"

" - not for him," Ra's finished. "You have said so. But you saw what he was like today . . . That power . . . that ferocity – all without cause or belief or containment. He does not believe in our cause, daughter. He is a loose cannon, an animal who will someday bite the hand that feeds it."

"His belief and conviction are stronger than that of any man I have ever met," she said, her voice low on her tongue. "He just does not believe in _you_."

Ra's shook his head. "He is a man without balance. Without enlightenment. And, someday," his voice dipped lower, shaped like a promise, "he will destroy you."

And Talia felt her heart stab like a knife wound in her chest as she thought of the way the blade had come _that_ close. How it had not been for himself that Bane had faltered, but _for her_.

And she had already seen him scared enough in her name.

"No," she said, her voice hollow like prophesy. "Someday, I will destroy him."

.

.

Someday, she will think back on her time spent with the League, and think of peace.

She will think of sitting cross-legged on the floor before charts and maps, her hair pulled back and her throat bare as she crossed routes and plans and logs, playing with the lives of men as she would play with pieces on the chessboard. She will think of comradeship – of the rare moments of laughter and companionable silences with her father, of tea and gossip with Ubu as they worked their shift in the kitchens. She will think of the odd sort of bond that she had with her fellow shadows, each forged as they were to march, to fight and wage war as the League said live and breathe and _fall_.

And she will think of the evenings she spent, quiet and peaceful with Bane – reflections of her happier memories from the Pit. She will think of Bane's fingers in her hair, curious as ever as she nodded off to sleep before the fire. She will think about touching the skin of his jaw, and wonder how she simply thought him a friend. She will think about her bones, bound in the night, just barely holding the cold flame in the core of her from breaking through her skin – from consuming her alive.

She will think of these moments, near the end – the _very end_ . . . and know longing.

.

.

And, at other times, she will think back on her time with the League and only remember every little thing that set her away from the standards even those at the edges of humanity set.

It was second nature to her, a survivors reflex to act first and act fast when a hand had come too close to her plate at dinner - flipping the dagger from her sleeve and bringing it down on the wayward appendage, skewering it to the table. She did not mean to hurt the poor man – who did not scream, a credit to his training - but instincts did as instincts urged, and Talia had _felt_ the eyes that had snapped upon her with the deed done. The eyes of the others followed her, never whispering, not at Ra's al-Ghul's own table with Ra's al-Ghul's own daughter as the subject of their whispers. Even still, she had felt their stares crawl, knowing that they saw only the half feral girl whom the Pit had forgot. She knew, that in some circles, she was called a monster even more so than Bane . . . by the mouths who knew how to treat names and their weight with reverence.

She did not apologize, for she was the daughter of the Demonhead and she was Talia besides, and the syllables were foreign on a tongue who never was given to, only taken from. She did not apologize, but she did back away from the table suddenly, keeping her thoughts from her face, her feelings from her eyes. Both were weaknesses, and Ra's watched her leave with something hard and unreadable in his eyes. Talia only spared him a glance, feeling the stone of his gaze as heavy before her as the walls of the Pit had been all of those years ago. And, that evening, she could not find the strength within her to climb.

Bane, who had been sitting further down the table with an empty plate had watched her leave, but he did not follow her right away, wisely interpreting the way her body coiled against those she fled. She had fangs in that moment, and she wished to spare him her bite.

Instead of returning to her room and its shadows, she climbed to the roof – settling herself in her familiar roost as she took in the sight of the mountains at night, scarcely able to be seen without the glow of the stars above. Snow dotted the night around her, falling lazily from the sky, the flake's descent made short by the tall mountains who thrusted their faces arrogantly towards the heavens. They fell on the slick material of her coat, making darker splotches as they melted, not able to survive as they were once fallen.

Talia held her arms close to her body, and knew no warmth.

Bane did not join her for some time, and to his delay she would guess that he sat with the others through supper and then aided Ubu in clearing the plates, as it was their turn to do so. Talia felt a twinge in her side when she remembered she should have been helping them, but she pushed it away. Guilt was like the snow around her, and she had no use for its chill on her skin.

When he did finally make his way to her, he did not speak, not right away, for which she was thankful. Instead he leaned into the night, his back made a bow, pulled to strike, his strong arms like dragons at rest as he crossed them over his chest, hooking his hands in the straps of his vest. His breath misted on the air, even as it rasped from the black shape of his mask. Talia breathed deeply in and out, counting out her exhales as the silence between them stretched.

Her fingers flexed, one and then the other. She bit her tongue, wishing to ask if the man was okay, but unable to find the words. A heartbeat passed.

Bane settled, leaning his body to rest on the railings of the balcony. "Dache is well," he finally said where she would not ask. "He will not have control of that hand for the next three months, but he is in high hopes with the healers. You did him a favor by striking his right hand, his left is the one he has a particularly clear aim with."

Talia winced, and blamed it on the gust of wind that blew up from the canyon below. The ice in the air picked at her face, it stung her eyes.

"That is good to hear," Talia mumbled, her words soft under her breath.

At the sound of her speaking, Bane turned to her, his head tilted as if in thought. She met his eyes as if challenging him, and wondered why she bore such a fight in her bones at the moment. But he did not judge her – he did not pass sentence for the instincts that had kept her alive in the past, and would continue to do so in the future.

Still his gaze lingered. Talia set her jaw crossly and said, "You stare as if to search. What is it you look for, my friend?"

The corner of his eyes crinkled, even in the face of her annoyance. She knew that he smiled, even though she could not see his mouth make the shape. Finally, he humored her. "You are a reflection of your mother in look, but you are your father in gaze and expression."

She blinked, not really expecting that. But curiosity bit at her as she turned towards him. His body kept the wind from striking her, he as indomitable as the mountains around them. "Really?" Talia snorted her skepticism. "What do we have in common?"

"Three scowls," Bane responded readily. "And a truly impressive glower."

A laugh snagged in the back of her throat, more a cough than any expression of humor. It was rusty from too little use. Even still, he inclined his head when she raised a brow and looked at him dubiously, "And that look as well, little one. That look as well."

The corner of her lip pulled up, without her approval.

"A smile," Bane continued, his eyes glinting.

And Talia rolled her own eyes and swatted at his arm. "Perhaps it should be you rather than Ubu spinning his tales at the table at night – you have a tongue made for stories, my friend."

"Which you have long since known," he gave instead of striking against her words. He was a wave where Talia had been looking for a stone, and she felt her annoyance slip away, the shore soothed by the tide until she was merely tired from the energy it took to hold on to her ire.

She bit her lip, and thought about Bane's words. She thought about the shape of her mouth when it frowned, and the shape of her eyes when they reflected the ghost of Melisande to the world. She thought about the stare she would receive from her father in grey moments when he thought he did not see – when he would look at her as if searching, when the visage of her brought a look to his face not quite unlike pain. Even after so many years, she still did not understand the bond her parents had. She wondered in a moment of weakness, if her mother had known of the child she carried when she bargained her life for Ra's – when she begged to be lowered into the Pit in order to spare her husband such a fate. She wondered if Melisande would have still gave away her life in place of her husband's if she knew of the daughter she would commit to hell. She wondered, too, if every time her father saw her, he saw only that his wife was not saved – that another soul lived where the one he truly cherished had died. She was salt in a still open wound, and while Ra's words said otherwise, his eyes said enough, and Talia held her arms closer to her and thought about the way he had looked at her when she had stabbed poor Dache's hand . . . as if he had suffered a blow, the reminder of just where his daughter had came from and how she had had to work to survive striking him like a wound.

Her thoughts were heavy – they were _weak_ – and they made the night air heavy on her shoulders. Her eyes were wet, even though no tears fell. The mountain wind stung at her weakness, driving the cold past the layers she wore and into her bones.

Rather than leaning on the railing besides her, Bane moved to stand behind her. She could feel the heat of him, and without thinking she leaned back in to him. His arms wrapped around her, steadying her, offering his strength as her own, and, ever greedy, she took from him.

"Someday, your hate will swallow you, little one," Bane said, his voice a rumble in his throat. She felt the rise of his chest against her back, the sound still as massive to her then as it had been when she was a child.

Talia winced at the words, his soft prediction striking her more harshly than any of Ra's' sneers over the weaknesses of her heart. "I hate as you hate," she said to counter him, her hands loose on the arms that circled her, as if holding him in place.

She felt his head shake against the top of her hair. His breath whispered, a counterpoint to the howling wind below. "My hate is not the same," he countered. "I am not a good man. I was not a good one when your mother descended, and I was still a bad man when you rose. That hate is my own to bear, but you – you were always hope in that godforsaken place. You were innocence."

At that she did laugh, the sound was raw, torn from her throat. "I have never felt innocent, my friend."

"But you were, a little piece of the sun who was trying to find the sky. And now you have found it, and still you live in shadow."

The way he said it made her raise a brow, and she tilted her head up as if to look at his eyes. All she saw was grey and black, the faint glint of light off the tubes of his mask. "The League is a cause you do not believe in?" she asked, finally giving voice to a question she had long since wondered at.

Bane chose his words carefully. "I think that Ra's al-Ghul is a fanatic, and his cause is one that will never be achieved."

"You do not believe?" still she asked. The logic of a dream and the faith in it were two different things.

"Do you?" Bane countered.

And she felt her answer quick on her tongue before she stopped and thought, truly thought. " . . . I want to believe," she finally answered honestly. "I want to believe that the Head of the Demon can wipe away the corroded parts of the earth with just a sweep of his hand, but . . ."

She wanted to believe that if enough blood was shed – if enough men died and enough shock rose in the world like hope, then peace and justice would follow. But who was to say that she would be one of those standing at the end? Should she not burn with the world that Ra's hated so much? Was she worthy of such a place?

She wanted to strike in that moment. She wanted to hit and scream and claw. Her fingers ached as they did after a climb. But there was no one to fight. No where to go. Just the empty mountain and the falling snow, and Bane's arms loose around her. Just barely, she leaned back against him, and felt his arms tighten in response.

"What is there besides the hate?" she finally half turned in his hold to ask. She could see the high part of his cheek from the shadow, the pale part of his eyes. The rest was grey to her gaze. "What do you feel besides that?"

She could not see the shape of his mouth. She could not see if he smiled or not. Instead, he tapped the side of his mask. "I feel nothing, little one."

His heartbeat was quick. Too quick. It jumped and spun, and Talia found her own rising to match its tempo its rhythm. She remembered being younger, years younger, how she had tried to match her breathing with his own and how her lungs ached with the effort.

Her smile was crooked upon her face. It accused. "You are a liar, my friend."

He said nothing,

The snow fell, gentle and easy, and Talia turned her face to the sky and wished for rain.

.

.

Nearing their second year with the League, the healers came up with their sleekest design of Bane's mask yet – hiding tubes and conduits so that he would move easier in a battle without having to worry for their integrity. The shape of it was still black and imposing, but it would sit a little easier on his face. It would breathe a little lighter on his mouth. And Talia was used to fighting battles one step at a time, forging out victories over the expanse of years. They were patient, and even the smallest of movements in the right direction were those to be savored.

"The voice," Healer Cain said as he poked and prodded at a few of the tubes to make sure of their stability. "I can give you your voice back, should you desire it to be so."

A heartbeat. Bane looked at her, and Talia tilted her head. She closed her eyes and tried to remember a time when he didn't sound as he did now. The memory was vague, a scent of dust and rain in a far off land.

"I have my voice," he finally said, and Talia felt the corners of her mouth quirk up, not quite a smile as his gaze met hers once more before falling away.

.

.

"This is ridiculous."

When Talia spoke, her voice was laced with as much venom as she could muster – more that of a petulant child rather than the young woman her father insisted that she started to act like. Her eyes were cross and her audience was decidedly amused as they took in her ire - of course they were.

_Misogynists_, the lot of them, Talia decided viciously. Every last one of them.

The dojo floor – the same floor that she had sweat and bled and drawn blood on had been converted into a gross parody of some fine man's ballroom, and Talia – with her tunic and leggings and her sloppy braid was playing the part of fine lady, waltzing with Ubu while balancing three stacked books atop her head. Ra's manservant counted out the beat in a too pleased voice – _one two three, one two three_ – as if he were enjoying Talia's pain acutely. "Sadist," Talia breathed when Ubu went to spin her. She missed a note, and the books atop her head rattled alarmingly – again.

Past them both was Ra's, tapping his sheathed sword in time to the beat – a waltz by Shostakovitch that was starting to blend in with Tchaikovsky and Strauss to her ears. "You present a weapon that few others in the league can offer," Ra's said, his voice pleasantly level as he ignored his daughter's protests. "You can place yourself in positions the rest of the League can only accomplish through shadow. We do not always need a dagger in the dark, daughter. Sometimes, the sharpest blade is the one placed directly in the light – hidden in plain sight."

She raised a brow as beyond them, Bane – who was leaning against one of the red pillars and carving a bit of wood he held in his hands - let out a low snort that could have been a laugh had it not been distorted by the mask.

She glared over at her friend. "By that, he means that I have breasts," she seethed.

Before her, Ubu continued to chant, _one two three, one two three_, ignoring his pupil's outburst. The music dipped and twined, and Talia could almost hear the swirl of fabric and the slide of feet that would come with it.

"I think that your father is trying to say that a woman of refinement -" Talia tripped and the books on her head faltered dangerously - "can more easily manouver a fatal blow into place than a man."

She made a face. "Misogynists," she seethed, but, finally, there was humor on her face as she uttered the syllables.

"Forgive me, child, but had Bane a slightly prettier build, I would rather teach him than you – your feet are as stubborn as your mind, and you move like a mountain goat when not holding a blade -"

Talia purposefully missed her next step, digging her heel into Ubu's right foot. The man made a pained face, keeping any further sounds of pain tucked in his mouth. He settled for a mighty glare, and Talia smiled sweetly.

Beyond them both, Bane snorted. Ra's spared a moment to level a cross look at the strongman before turning to his daughter. "It is nothing more than theatricality and deception – and you have taken well to both so far. This is just one step more in your training."

Using the shadows and their cover, that Talia could agree with. Even so, the knowledge of what step her dance and smiles would take . . . This time when she spoke, there was no annoyance in her voice. But there was no humor, either. "If I had an enemy to face, I would rather march up to him and stab him in the heart. Why have to seduce a man, only to stab him in the back?"

When Ra's smiled, the expression was almost sad on his face. "Sometimes, the direct blow will fail to be the one that kills. It is the one that waits. The one that dips in slow from the one hand you never expected it from that will be the blow properly landed." He glanced at Bane before turning back to her. The next strike of Bane's knife against the wood was swift.

And Talia felt her temples ache as a familiar argument was made in a different shape. Before her, Ubu saw the loss of her attention, and, finally, he sighed. "There is nothing more I can teach you today, child. Go on now, I release you."

Smiling, Talia backed from him, and caught the books as she let them fall from her head. She held them for a moment as the waltz continued to spin around them.

"It is not freedom yet I offer you," Ubu warned. "You will learn this – even if I have to keep you past supper. So rethink your willingness to learn when you meet me here tomorrow."

And for all of Ubu's loyalty and easy humor, Talia knew that his threat was far from empty. And so, she bowed her head to him and crossed her heart. "A full mind, I swear," she vowed.

Ubu's eyes doubted, but he waved her away anyway. Talia bit off a grin, before turning to Bane, the hulking man falling easily into step beside her without she even having to call him forth. Behind them, Ra's watched them go with something unreadable in his eyes. For a moment, Talia weighed the look before shaking it away and thinking of it no more.

.

.

Later, in the darkness of her room, she played the record of waltzes again, and tried to force her heavy feet into the elegant lines Ubu had been trying to teach to her.

Her words may have have been sharp and strong – her dismissal of such a trivial lesson quick and easy, but the truth of it was that Talia was frustrated - daunted even by the idea of conquering such a seemingly insurmountable task. She had made her way through the world under the guise of a boy, had learned to make her gait strong and square, and now she was asking to curve and wind, to force her body to be a poison where she had been sharpening it as if it were steel . . .

But a weapon was a weapon, and so Talia played Chopin's _'l'Adieu' -_ the Last Waltz, thinking it fitting for the destruction she would be required to wrought with her smile and eyes. She liked the way the song dipped – wistful and spinning and then slow and melancholy, the dip and turn of the notes something she remembered on Melisande's lips back from their days in the Pit. . . A part of her, a part that was still soft and young wondered if her parents had danced before their days had became numbered – back when there was happiness amongst the fear of discovery. She hummed the notes under her breath as she spun around her room with the shadows as a partner, and counted in her head, _one-two-three, one-two-three_.

Her feet scraped, one over the other. The sound of her bare toes on the wood tapped in time to the slow notes from the record player. Her heart thundered as if she were marching rather than dancing. She made a face at her own body – the traitorous thing, hearing Ubu's scoldings in her head even though he was not there to voice them.

She was one step away from getting out her books once more – if the blasted things would keep her posture straight, then so be it, for she would conquer this – when she heard a whisper of laughter from the door of her room.

"Forgive me for startling you, little one, but you were quite . . . absorbed in your music." Bane's head was tilted, his eyes twinkling with amusement.

And Talia set her jaw at his presence and swallowed, her cheeks flaring red with being discovered.

"Or you simply step with a lighter stride than many would give credit for," she scathed in return to his too polite words. "You can knock, my friend."

He shrugged, the wide line of his shoulders rising and falling. "And miss you at study? I think not."

Her gaze withered before she sighed, turning from him. When she stalked (_stalked_, her mind insisted where her logic could truthfully say that she s_ulked_) over to her chest to retrieve the books, his eyes followed her. Of her own volition, her stride curved, just slightly, at the knowing, and she rolled her eyes and wondered why she couldn't just move that into her attempt at waltzing.

"It isn't like I care if it is a skill I learn," she said over her shoulder as she rifled through her few belongings. Her voice turned with a note of petulance – a note she couldn't quite tuck away as beyond her, Bane moved the record to pause. The music scratched for a moment, discordant on the air, before settling into silence.

"Of course not, little one," Bane agreed smoothly. There was a note of humor in his voice, apparent even around the hiss of his mask.

She bit her lip. "I just do not like leaving something unmastered," she said – and yes, she could not disguise the petulance that colored those words. She felt as she did when she was a child and the wall had stumped her for the day – when she fell more than she rose and her knees were scraped and bloodied as a result.

She got to her feet, the tomes in hand. When she turned, she found that Bane stood very close. She didn't blink as she looked up at him.

"You are stubborn," he said, reaching out to touch the furrowed line of her brow, saying that he remembered as much as she did. She felt her throat make a warm movement. For a moment it was hard to swallow.

"Apparently, not stubborn enough," her mouth twisted about the words. She slipped past him, moving to the record player again.

"I wouldn't say that," Bane disagreed mildly. His eyes watched her over the dark shape of his mask. "Although, I would say that your progress would be swifter with more than the shadows as a partner."

Talia snorted. "The only other option for me is to invite Ubu up, and while I am stubborn, I am not a masochist."

Bane raised a brow, she glanced at the shape and read amusement on him. "I was not thinking of Ubu," he said, his voice level, and it took Talia a moment to comprehend his meaning. She glanced over at him, her eyes sharp.

"Now I know that I am not the masochist in the room," she said, the humor in her voice covering her skepticism and sudden (and much odder) apprehension. "Truly, you need not inflict pain on yourself this way, my friend."

"I prefer to think of it as bravery," Bane's voice rounded in amusement, and Talia felt the fine hairs on the back of her neck stand up as if in warning. Her breath snared in her throat, making it burn as if trying to escape around a stone.

"Indeed?" she returned. "Such a fine line there is between the two."

He had moved to the record player again. "And you are stalling," he pointed out easily. "Are you afraid?"

She snorted – the sound a reflex on her lips. "Me? Of nothing." Her pulse jumped when she clenched her fists, betraying her lie.

"As I thought," Bane agreed with her. "Now, Chopin will not be the thing to pin your wings. Come now, again."

Talia hesitated a heartbeat, moving to hold the books in both of her hands, crossing them over her chest. Finally, her decision made, she placed the books aside, and stepped towards her waiting friend. Her jaw locked. She stared him in the eye as if they stood in the training rings rather than at a dance's start.

She held her hands out, summoning her courage. "Well then?" she challenged.

Bane shook his head, but he humored her, stepping forward as the music started. The wrapped together easily enough – her hand on his shoulder and his at her waist. The notes rose, they invited, and he stepped left. She followed him, her body moving out of instinct as much as any of Ubu's remembered lessons. She stepped right. The dance continued.

She bit her lip, but refused to look down at her feet. Instead she tried to read the cues from his body, she tried to let him lead. But her steps felt forced, her feet felt too heavy on her body.

"Relax," Bane's voice rumbled deep in his chest. "You are as tight as a bow string."

"I am relaxed," Talia said too quickly, unfortunately missing the beat and stepping on his foot with her next move.

She felt her cheeks flush red, even as she bit back the apology that bloomed on her tongue. "I did not mean to do that," she said instead.

"I would gather," Bane said, ignoring the misstep and continuing on as if nothing was amiss. "You think in angles where you must now think in curves. You are letting your mind defeat you."

Curves, she tried to think – elegance in the turn of a wrist and the sway of a step. She could bend her body into any shape she wished when she fought – she could flex and move and _adapt_ in the most literal of ways – but the fluttering lashes of a woman and the inviting tilt of head and turn of stride . . .

She bit her tongue, glancing up. "Where did you learn to dance?" she found herself challenging instead, taking his gaze away from her awkward feet with her words.

He rolled his shoulders. She felt his hand flex against her waist. "I simply know how."

"From before?" she asked, her words a question.

And his gaze slipped up to her eyes before falling to the right, where her hair had fallen from the messy bun she had tied it in from the night. "From before," he echoed, slipping away from the answer she sought.

She sighed, feeling the breath fall from the deep parts of her. But her lapse in concentration had actually resulted in a smooth flow of movement from her wayward limbs. She realized that just as she missed the next beat, as if reminded of how she should have been faltering.

She felt her eyes narrow, and the cold flame at the core of her spiked before Bane said:

"Try closing your eyes, little one," he suggested next. "Your mind betrays you. It hampers your body's efforts."

"Close my eyes?" she repeated dubiously.

"Shut them tight," he confirmed. "You are born of the shadow and the dark. Let them aid you now."

Still her gaze doubted.

"Trust me," he bid her, the words soft on his mouth, and at them, she could deny him nothing.

She inhaled, and held her breath in her mouth, and finally, she closed her eyes.

She could see nothing, but her hearing was heightened with the loss of her sight. She could feel her breath expand in her lungs, she could feel her blood thunder in her ears. This close, she could feel Bane breathe – the large flex of his chest like the sky as it blew in the storm. The hiss of his mask clicked in the silence of the night and the gentle strain of the music around them. The sad strain of the strings thrummed with her pulse, slithering beneath her skin to find bone and anchoring there.

Her hand flexed on his shoulder. She could feel strong muscle under her grip, like the rock on the mountain face. She felt her too fast pulse skip in her chest. It beat to an odd pattern. In her hand, his was large and warm – the hand that could crush a man's skull in his grip was made gentle and soft in hers as he held her fingers loosely, allowing her to follow rather than insisting that he lead. At her waist, she could feel his other hand, somehow searing on her skin – as if trying to leave a mark.

She bit her lip as she moved in the dark, trying to figure out how something as simple as a dance with closed eyes was more intimate than the nights she could not spend away from his side – innocent in intention where the world would dub it otherwise; the evenings when she would plot and study with her shoulder pressed to his and his hand playing absently in her hair.

It was simply different, her mind finally decided, at a loss.

And she continued to move through the shadows with him.

Without looking at what she was doing, she was forced to feel the music more than listen to it – she moved in time with it, unconsciously following Bane's body as he led her. And without her feet causing her to stumble, she found that she could sway – she could move as an arch, as a circle and a winding thing. She could _understand_ in that moment, and as the shadows hummed and the music faded in her ears to the sound of Bane's breathing, she wondered why it had ever given her cause to stumble.

The piece faded, the strings holding on to their final notes before surrendering to silence, and the record scratched as it reached its end. Talia came to an awkward halt, holding her breath as Bane held her hand for a moment longer than was strictly necessary.

"There," he said softly. "You understand."

"Thank-you," she said, the words honest and strangely breathless on her tongue. She felt her cheeks flame before recovering herself, and added, "For saving poor Ubu's feet tomorrow, that is. I fear that I was quite the trial for him today."

"Indeed," Bane inclined his head. "We wouldn't want him to suffer any more."

"For Ubu," she repeated, tossing her head imperiously, a smile touching the side of her mouth.

"For Ubu," Bane echoed.

And Talia stood opposite of him, unsure what to do with her hands, what to do with the silence. She closed her eyes for a moment, finding the shadows at her fingertips and the peace they promised before smiling – honestly and widely. "But, to be certain, it would be prudent if we tried once more, would it not?"

A moment passed. "For repetition's sake," Bane gave carefully, his eyes looking for something she could not name.

"Indeed," Talia let her smile linger as she thumbed the record into place again. Again, the air was filled with sound, and Talia this time let her eyes stay open wide.

"Once more," she beckoned. And Bane followed.

.

.

That night she tried to stay in her own bed until the dawn threatened to show its face and she still had not known rest. She stole into Bane's quarters with a silent step, tiptoeing over the creaks and loose spots in the floor before slipping into bed with him.

When he turned to her, his eyes were already open, but he said nothing as to her intrusion. Instead, he wrapped a heavy arm around her and she folded into him as a hand to a fist. The quick beat of her heart calmed as she settled, sleep weighing on her mind with a warm weight. The slow hiss of Bane's mask in the dark – a slimmer model that did not have to hold up to the rigors of combat, but rather the peace of night – was an easy, constant whisper that her breathing unconsciously matched as he fell back asleep with her by his side.

And still, Talia stayed awake in the dark, listening to the sound of his breathing for a long, long time.

.

.

They were in Kabul some weeks later, politely gaining information from a Russian trader – who on the surface ran silk from Dushanbe to Kabul and then north and east into the world, but underneath also sold secrets and whispers, of which the League had lately played a prominent role.

Ra's was not one to silence when he could simply turn the wagging tongue his way, but such tongues also had teeth, and they had to make sure that sparing the man would favor their interests the best. Bane would give the man a choice – and incentive to remember who the real powers in the world were. If not, then he was also the most ideal man to ensure the silk trader's silence. Ubu was a quiet shadow to them for the trip – the three of them all who were needed for such a task.

Talia made a face behind the veil that hid her mouth, thinking that she had only been allowed along since Kabul was one of the closer cities to their home in the mountains – relatively speaking, of course. As simple as the mission went, the risk of danger only came from the trader's other contacts gaining wind of their movements. Then, Talia thought, it would not be the other factions trying to stay their hand – it would be a race to the trader's throat.

Oleg – the trader they sought - had a spattering of booths in the bazaars that still dominated Kabul's more ancient parts. The streets were crumbling and crooked, all sand colored stones and archaic mosaics – faded and corroded with time. The buildings had stood against sand and sun and dictator and armies untold, and at the cornerstones of their alleys, the markets still thrived – alive with noise and confusion, sights and sounds and scents. Spices filled the air along with the smell of smoking meat and the floral scent of incense. Hagglers cried, selling their wares as they were met and bartered with, their voices raising, one over the other in order to garner the best price. Through the crowd, children ran like a school of fish through the coral, and Talia watched as their little and nimble fingers took wallets and purses and coins from the unsuspecting masses. Her smile quirked, remembering when a thief named Asaph had taught her the same when she had passed through this area of the world a few years ago.

While the children ran to and fro, she looked and saw the few older ones – young men about her age, not quite adults, but not children either – watching the children with sharp eyes. It would be to them to collect the spoils and report back to their handler even later in the day. It was a sad circle, but it kept bread in the children's stomachs, and so Talia did not say anything. Instead she watched.

But she did raise a brow, and catch the wrist of a child who thought to slip his hand into her purse.

"You make a mistake, little one," she said, taking a moment to let her eyes fall from her vigil – for while Bane and Ubu sought out Oleg in the crowd, it was to her to discern whether or not anyone else was looking for Oleg.

The child she had caught looked up – eyes narrowing, but not with fear, and Talia felt her mouth quirk upon the gaze. "Always seek out marks whose eyes are on the market, and not on you." Talia let the little hand go, and fished out a copper coin for the child, anyway, the little boy not even pausing to acknowledge the gift before scurrying back into the crowd from where he had came.

Across the crowd, Bane had found her eyes – his mask hidden beneath a long swath of grey cloth, not unlike what she wore. There was amusement there, and she raised a brow in return.

But then there was a whistling noise, Ubu calling them both back to themselves – and Bane and Ubu quietly made their way to where Oleg's nervous face had just appeared in the crowd. Talia hung back, and watched for other eyes on them, searching the crowd for other tails.

Humming absently under her breath, she turned to a vendor who was selling copper pots, and picked one up, watching the movements in the crowd in the reflection on the gilded surface, even as the owner of the booth started chattering about the pot's story – a relic from the time of Amir Nashad, so it would seem, and Talia raised a brow and saw the lie in the man's face – his eyes and too fast hands.

Beyond them, there was a scuffle. Talia turned just slightly so that she could see out of the corner of her eye.

A few booths over, the child who had tried to steal from her had been caught trying to pick up the cash box of a man selling thick woolen blankets. The child was babbling – mumbling in a string of frightened words that he had not been scared enough to utter when he was with her. The vendor was furious as he berated the small child, and Talia felt the bottom of her stomach drop, knowing that in this area of the world, the price for a failed thief was the loss of a hand. She placed the pot down, and started to move, the vendor behind her squawking angrily over the loss of her patronage.

The man beyond them was enraged and confident of his prowess over the youngster, and yet, the second the man turned – no doubt to flag down one of the gun bearing men who patrolled the stalls – the child slipped his too thin wrist through the man's hand, and took off like a sparrow through the crowd – instantly turning down one of the alleys that made up the cramped streets.

The man gave flight. Talia followed.

As soon as she slipped into the alley, keeping to the shadows where the smell of rotting things was rank and the air was cool out of the sun, she knew that something was wrong. She could see not the man nor the boy, and the sound of a chase was absent from the alley around her. They had not been fast enough to go that far in those few seconds, and Talia narrowed her eyes as she looked at the doors that lined the alley, wondering which had swallowed them.

It was just _too _silent.

The cold flame at the core of her was spiking uneasily, and when she turned – her feet suddenly anxious for the market and the mass of people it held – she found a hand reaching out of the shadows to grab her. Quicker than she could realize, she felt her back hit the wall, one strong hand holding her wrists over her head, and another held tight at her throat.

She blinked as the breath was knocked from her, and when her eyes focused – snapping to attention and quickly drinking in any detail that she could turn to a weapon, she saw that a young man held her – one of the teenagers she had seen overlooking the group of thieving children. He was slightly built, but in the way of one used to slipping between and under the broad parts of the world. His clothes were ragged, but well mended, sturdy and practical. His teeth were very white for a child of the underbelly of the city, made so by the dusky cast of his face. He was smiling at her, amused by how easily she had fallen into their trap.

It had been a staging, she thought, annoyed with herself – the man and the boy were no doubt part of the same crew, and Talia had fallen for their ruse like one of her father's green students, newly recruited from the world. Worse than that, she berated herself – she was like one of those who did not even make the climb up the mountain.

_Sentiment_, Ra's' voice seethed in her head, and Talia narrowed her eyes and thought _but the child was such as I was_, as if she were protesting her actions straight to him when a tightening of the hands over her wrists called her back to herself.

"You mad a mistake, little one," the boy said to her, as she had said to the child, and she fought the urge to roll her eyes. The words were oddly playful rather than malicious, and Talia had the odd feeling that she was been teased rather than berated with a captor's slandering.

She narrowed her eyes, and said, "Not as severe as the one you have made," in a voice that promised. Her veil had fallen in the scuffle, and her mouth made an annoyed line on her face. He watched the shape of her syllables, clearly amused, which made the annoyance in her veins burn that much hotter.

The young man smiled, as if looking forward to whatever she had in mind. He was all street smart – he held her wrists smartly, and Talia flexed, already finding the weak spots in his hold. She didn't see a weapon on him, but his clothes were baggy, and she wouldn't be surprised if a dagger or two were strapped to his body somewhere. He carefully held his body away from hers, not trusting her if she decided to kick or struggle.

She flexed again, and felt the dagger in her sleeve loosen in its holster. She only had to move _that_ way and with the same movement that would break his hold on her would also put the knife in her hand. He leaned in close, and Talia felt her muscles tense, ready to move, when -

- to her surprise, instead of attacking, he kissed her.

Later, she will insist that it was shock and shock only that left her standing still. The hand about her wrist loosened, but yet Talia did not make a move for her dagger, too stupefied was she to move. The kiss was soft and sweet with that same sense of infernal teasing that had her wishing to wring the man's neck just a moment ago.

The hand that had been crossed over her neck, pinning her, had loosened as well, coming instead to rest on her side. She felt the pressure of a hand on her hip, right next to her purse, when the sensation was gone as quickly as it came – the teenager having taken a few large steps back and releasing her, smiling a lopsided grin.

"A thousand thanks," the urchin beamed, bowing mockingly and saluting to her before turning on his heel and running as fast as he could – and had Talia had not been trying to clear the mire from her head, she would have taken off after him.

Instead, she reached down, and felt in her purse. Empty. She made a face, more annoyance with herself than anything else as the annoyance sharpened into anger at her slip. Wonderful. She had been robbed for helping an orphan. The injustice of the world closed in on her like a fist, even as in her mind, she held the lose of that kiss more dearly than those of the coins, though she knew not why.

Slowly, she turned the other way, pulling her veil and hood back over her face and stepping into the clamor of the market once again. She searched, but she could no longer see Oleg. Instead, Bane and Ubu were waiting for her.

"That was fast," she commented, raising a brow. She hid the breathless tone in her voice behind arrogance instead, wishing to set the subject upon a path of her liking straight away.

"Oleg decided he wished not to talk," Ubu said, his voice as calm as if he were speaking of the weather. At his side, Bane was silent, his massive form a stone in the current of the market around them. "Ever and to anyone, it would seem."

Ah, then he had decided to take his own life rather than deal with the justice of the League. Talia felt another spike of annoyance in her chest – the trip wasted in more ways than one now.

"But I see that you managed to see the sights on your own while we undertook our business," Ubu chose to say next, and Talia felt her cheeks instantly turn flaming – embarrassment for her failure and something else lighting her veins as her gaze darted over to Bane and then back to Ubu again, the look stealing as a thief though a lock, though she knew not why.

"That would not have happened had I been dressed as a boy," Talia seethed sullenly, not offering any excuses for her failure and hiding behind flippancy instead. She was not going to stand there and explain how a mere kiss had left the Demonhead's daughter as defenseless as sand in the wind to her bodyguard – and to Bane, at that.

Ubu laughed, "Most likely not. But then, you would not have known the pleasure of a kiss, either."

On cue, her blush deepened. And Talia turned her face away, even covered as she was by her veil.

Ubu placed a hand on her shoulder. "Come now, a carafe of coffee is the answer to all of life's woes – my treat since I have the coin for it and you do not, before we make our way back. Such a waste leaves a bitter taste in one's mouth, and I wish to wash it away."

Talia nodded her agreement, falling into step behind Ubu and Bane – who had been silent through all of the assassin's good-hearted teasing. Behind him, Talia did not have to sneak her stare, instead letting her eyes fall openly on the wide line of his shoulders. She bit her lip, her heart still restless in her chest, even though the fight had passed.

And, as she stared into her coffee – Ubu carrying on the conversation about something or the other as Bane continued to gaze expressionlessly on the crowd, unable to drink himself in public thanks to his mask, she let herself reflect.

_The pleasure of a kiss_, Ubu had said, and the phrase turned oddly at her mind, picking at her thoughts even as the strong black coffee picked sharply at her tongue, the acidic taste bitter and bold on her palette. _The pleasure of a kiss. _Before, in the Pit, lust had been an ugly and degrading thing – an unholy exorcism of the body in a place that had no humanity left to it. Lust had been the thing that killed her mother – the thing that tore her into tiny pieces and left her nothing but a stain to the few minds who knew to remember her. Lust had been the blade at Talia's throat her whole childhood – it had been the reason she had to build her wings to fly, and lust denied an outlet had been the reason Bane had lost his face in the defense of her.

She knew that she had been lucky during those early years she had spent alone – for a girl absent a protector in the world was a target for all sort of tragedies – lust again a dark and violent smear on the cloth humanity spun. But then, during her travels she also learned that lust was something more than the strong imposing their desires on the weak. She had learned about the brothels and loose women of the night who welcomed men to them to coin. She had passed through enough dark alleys and corners to stumble upon lovers entwined – no pain inflicted but instead pleasure received with the meeting of bodies and the tangle of touch. Talia, who had grown thinking that lust was only something forced and coerced found that it was something that the world engaged in regularly – there were parts of the world that were voluptuous and sensual, and they, more than anything else, still baffled her mind.

And, sometimes, lust was more than even that – it was far from crude, but rather effervescent. When it was instead _love_ (the idea of such a bond an abstract concept to Talia in her view of the world), she knew that that was just as much a trap, waiting to snare. _Love_ had torn her parents apart, had signed Melisande's death, and had been the crucible to forge Henri Ducard into Ra's al-Ghul. The heart was weak, the body even more so, and Talia had never understood how such a weakness was able to hold so much of the world in its snare.

She pressed her lips together, and still felt them tingle. She curved her fingers over her small mug, the porcelain smooth to the touch as her thoughts continued to spin.

In the League, fraternization was strictly frowned upon – even on relationships as simple as merely friendship. The physical needs of the body were merely a weakness, and it was ignored in favor of serving a higher purpose, obtaining a higher goal. Unnecessary contact was forbidden as each student was independently trained, each person's unique abilities exploited and perfected before they were sent out into the world to carry on the business of the League. In the beginning, she had liked that – had found a peace and comfort in that, in having a home where she was not stared at with lust hidden and concealed because of her gender. Of course she was given looks of curiosity – for both her sex and her role as the Demonhead's daughter, besides, but she did not feel those looks crawl upon her skin. They simply wondered, no harm or maliciousness intended, and Talia even began to enjoy those looks over time – especially when she triumphed over one of her comrades on the dojo's floor. She would pause to study that look, each and every time before she reached down to give the defeated men a hand up.

Of course, Ra's' rules of fraternization did not seem to stretch to her – even though her friendship with her protector was something everyone in the League knew of, from the highest sensei to the newest recruit. But he did not forbid it, he did not cross the warning in her eyes, the knowledge that if he made her choose he was not necessarily the one who would win. At the thought, Talia felt the cold flame in the core of her flare, turning warm for just a moment. The warmth was calming, soothing, and at it Talia found her eyes slipping away from Ubu and his tale and instead to fall on Bane again. The cloth that covered his face warped and dipped in odd shapes from his mask, held tight over the ruined skin beneath. Talia stared, and for a moment she let herself wonder . . . _the pleasure of a kiss _. . .

She thought of the urchin's cool lips, the sweet sensation and the not unpleasant tingling in her fingers that had came as a result. As if thinking of an abstract thing, she imagined the pressure more firm, the lips over her own bruised and distorted. She still imagined her hands pinned over her head, the weight of a hand at her side, but not a lithe body before her own, but one large enough to block out even the sun . . . And her eyes snapped open at the thought. As quickly as the daydream came, she shoved it away, feeling heat rise on her skin at the very thought. Her veins pulsed with movement as she bit her lip, distracting herself with that and the heat of the coffee in her hands. She concentrated on the scent of the city and the desert in her nose.

And still her heart beat oddly.

_Silly_, she reminded herself. Silly and childish and _weak_. She turned the three words into a mantra, slithering through her head.

_Silly _and_ childish _and_ weak . . ._

Her mind made, she tuned back into Ubu's story – a tale of how Ubu's last trip to Kabul had been to recruit a pair of martial artists called the Wu-San sisters. He had traveled with the geneticist they all knew as Cain – one of the healers at the monastery who had assisted in the design of Bane's mask. The story took her away from her thoughts, even as she found her gaze turned to Bane every couple of words, falling on the cloth that covered his face, where she knew his mask to be.

Her heart twisted, as if trying to beat around a stone. Her skin itched, though she knew not why. When Bane caught her staring, he raised a brow, to which Talia turned away, her cheeks flaming.

_Child_, she berated herself, even as she felt Bane's eyes linger. _Weak little girl._

She clenched her fingers around her mug. Bane looked away.

And she felt the stone in her heart give an odd twinge, as if a fist was held tight and trying to squeeze.

. . . yes, simple and silly indeed.

* * *

**Author's Notes:**

Whew, you all can breathe now. To those of you who made it through that chunk, I salute you!

And, that said, I have a general warning for the chapters coming up. This story is going to turn into a romance, and I know that some of you are a little squirmy about age gaps. I myself am not, under the right circumstances, of which, I definitely think these to be. So, if that does not float your boat, I recommend that you stop reading here and pretend that their's is just an odd sort of friendship right to the end.

And yet, if that sort of thing does not bother you, then by all means . . . lets go. ;)


	4. steel, crucible forged

**Author's Note**: First of all, I have to take a moment to thank you all for your amazing, _amazing_ feedback. Your guy's response and support has been nothing short of extraordinary, and I am humbled as an author. And then, I have to apologize for just how long this beast of a chapter took me to write. I don't know how many of you were reading my updates in my profile (if you are ever wondering about a story's progression, I try to keep tabs there), but a few of the scenes here gave me quite a headache and I had to take a step back from the story for a week or two in order to refresh my muse.

And so, that said, I have to admit that I did not mean for this chapter to get this long. I kind of shot myself in the foot when I plotted these chapters by sections of Talia's life rather than actual blow by blow scenes, and as a result I literally had not one place I could chop this down without disrupting the pre-established pattern and flow of the story. I think that most of you will enjoy all of the extra words, but for the few of you who are going _you're killing me_ with the word count, I apologize . . . most sincerely. I recommend reading this chunk in a few settings. With coffee on hand. ;)

But, that is enough of my rambling. For now, here we are with the moment you have all been waiting for . . .

* * *

**Part IV: "steel, crucible forged"**

A month had passed since that day in Kabul, and once again, Talia danced.

The atmosphere around her was heavy this time, the air shaped to judge rather than to teach, and so Talia danced silently with Ubu as her partner, her brow furrowed and her commentary kept in her mind rather than on her lips as she spun in time to the music around her. The steps of the dance had become rote for her over the past few weeks, and she found herself adjusting to the sway of the music as she did to the sway of a fight, a constant ebb and flow of bodies and hands.

On top of the dancing, and the etiquette lessons (which had came as a surprise to her – truly, there were how many forks she needed to memorize? _She_? Who had eaten with nothing more than her fingers for the first dozen years of her life?) had come parts of her days that she reported to the Lady Sandra – or Shiva as she was becoming to be known in their circle of assassins. There she had been given a different kind of instruction, a Lady's tutelage of how to sit and stand and hold herself before others. She was taught how to talk, to flatter, to gossip with the rich and the privileged of the upper crust. And yet, first and foremost, she was taught the lessons of the language of the body. She learned how to read eyes and feints and double feints as the lies they were. She learned how to plant suggestions and give falsehoods of her own. She learned how to entrance a man with the turn of her wrist and the sway of her step. It was a new world that opened up before her, a world that was filled with a fool's gold light as much as it was with shadows, and slowly but surely, Talia learned. She progressed.

And she rose.

The reports from Shiva must have been flattering, for Ra's' eyes were upon her as if to judge this day, and Talia knew that a task had been assigned to her. She needed only to prove herself ready.

And so she danced, her eyes low and hooded, the sway of her body promising if not wholly inviting. The music spun, and she remembered a night in her rooms, with hands like a brand at her waist, and her heart like a storm in her chest, fit to strike the land below.

As Ubu turned her, her eyes darted to the pillars of the training floor, one after the other, but their shadows were empty. She fought the urge to bite her lip as she turned away, feeling a pang in her side and swearing that it was not _missing_. Bane had not joined her lessons since that night he danced with her, and Talia felt the loss of him like a blade after it had been drawn from skin. It was an empty feeling that she cared not for.

But she had more on her mind than her friend and his absences as the music picked up in tempo. She paid mind to her feet, to her hand on Ubu's shoulder, to the way her boots scraped against the floor, the way her braid fell to rest between her shoulder-blades before fluttering in the air again.

The waltz spun, and then it settled. The last notes rested on the air, a farewell that promised.

And Talia looked up from beneath her lidded eyes, and smiled. She felt a low thrum in her veins, the same that came when she would steal bread away from a man twice her size, and she knew that she had done well.

A heartbeat passed as Ra's studied her. His gaze weighed, and Talia tilted her head to his appraisal and dared him to find fault with her eyes.

"You are ready," Ra's finally announced, pride in his eyes if not in his voice, and Talia turned away from Ubu in order to press her fist to her open palm and bow to her father.

"Where I am needed by the shadows, so let me be used," she muttered, the vow on her lips uttered as it had been by the hundreds of souls who had been wielded by the League before.

Ra's did not bow, but he did incline his head – respect in the barest of forms, before turning. Talia bit her lip as she watched him leave. Ubu too nodded to her as he passed, reaching over to briefly squeeze her hand, an easier affection in his eyes that Ra's', before he turned to follow his master.

Talia lingered for a moment in the silence before finally turning to face the empty space where Bane should have been. Just barely, she frowned. Her gaze lingered, searching the shadows, before she finally rolled her eyes and turned away with a curse, refusing to look back again.

.

.

The island was called Malé, the capitol of a nation of islands and atolls, southwest of India and just east of the horn of Africa. If the Pit had been hell on Earth, then Talia was sure that they had found heaven in the Maldives – a lush string of tropical wonders where she had known nothing but for the harshness of the desert and the cold severity of the mountains throughout the majority of her life.

During the first day of their arrival, when she was not looking over plans and charts with her father, she laughed as she walked through the tourist crowded streets, marveling over the scent of salt on the air and the impossibly blue shade of the sky above and the sea beyond. Ubu bought her a necklace of cowrie shells from one of the local booths, and showed her the paths where the coral itself was the footbridge that connected the smallest of islands, one to the other. She had learned to swim those many years ago when she had passed through the lands that the Jordan touched, she had dipped her feet in the Red Sea and the cobalt blue waters of the Mediterranean, taking her fear of so much water in one place and squashing it as she learned to read the currents and the tides - but this was the first time she was able to take an hour to dive, and the wonders that existed underneath the waves were equal to many she had seen above the water.

She had tried to explain her finds to Bane – who could not walk in the sun drenched land during the light of day. This was not some backwater bazaar or ancient part of the orient – this was sun tanned lines and money and power, and Bane with his mask could never sink into such a crowd. The knowledge picked at Talia, feeling his absence as a chasm – one that had been steadily growing over the past few weeks.

. . . a chasm. It was small, but it was there, with his shadow now behind her rather than at her side. At first, Talia had almost been thankful for the little bit of space, needing time as she did to collect her own thoughts in order. The day with the urchin and the dance in her room before . . . her mind was a current of thoughts and feelings and more, and she needed the force of it to slow before she could process it. She needed to be able to think, to analyze and plot. Thankfully, the mission in Malé was a distraction, and a much needed one at that, giving her mind something else to settle on rather than her conflict of emotions where the strongman was concerned.

The day and its wonders passed, and then the night came. The exhilaration of the tropical sun and the salty air was forgotten as Talia donned the shadows, letting the cause she lived for and the lives she served settle into her veins and etch itself into her very bones. She settled her heartbeat and calmed her mind, making her thoughts a blade, her body a polished weapon, a sharp knife in a jeweled hilt.

There was a function to be held in one of the governmental halls, a fundraiser for the president of the Maldives – a man who owed Ra's and the League of Shadows a favor for their help in two of the three coups that had occurred in the last ten years (the third the president had dealt with himself, and had almost regretted his slight in a most painful way. He was never one to shun the shadows who had given him his power after that). On the surface, the function was a charity dinner, but underneath, it was a meeting for arms dealers – mainly between a man from Somalia and another from Ethiopia, both representing two sides of the factions that were assisting in tearing the horn of Africa apart. They were meeting with a dealer from the south of India – thinking it wise to import arms over the Indian Ocean rather than down from Europe and the Arabian lands, and then south and then east into Africa. The conflicts in that area were as many as they were old, and many were based in older wounds than those who fought them truly knew about.

Asad Rahim was her mark for that night, a slow blade hidden in plain sight where a blade in the dark just would not do. It was her job to catch Asad's attention that night – to lull him into a false sense of safety and security with her words and eyes. Later, when the night was through, she would plant a blade in his chest when he would have expected a much different ending, and then that blade would be planted in the Indian dealer's rooms – thus destroying any further shipping plans, at least for the time being until the matter was further looked in to. By that time, the rest of her father's men would have done their work planting their evidence and silencing the mouths that needed to do so before taking control of the shipments themselves and ending the ring of warmongers for good.

And so, where her sturdy boots and her sharp knives would not be needed, she prepared for a different fight.

She sat before her mirror, and painted her face like Shiva had taught her – darkening her eyes and reddening her lips until it was as if a stranger wore her face, as if another soul had taken up residence in her eyes. She smiled as she had been taught, with lips curved to invite and teeth flashing to beguile, and tilted her head curiously as if to define the look in her mind, as if to say _this is me, this is me, this is me_, before finally becoming that person.

She was to be _Miranda _for the night, like the Shakespearean maiden of the same name, seemingly naive and pure with her loveliness – the likes of which not even Juliet or Ophelia could match, but with a will of iron underneath that would flame when least expected, as it did when she stood against her father's words when he had condemned all to die . . .

Ubu had smiled when he had suggested the alias, and she had not understood at first. Now she rolled the name on her tongue, and deemed it suitable where her mother's name for her was not.

After painting her face, she curled her hair, twisting it up into an elegant coil at the back of her head. She let strands come down to frame her face, to brush teasingly at the skin of her neck. The dress she was to wear that night was a shade of blue, dark like the nighttime sky. The fabric was smooth and cool and more expensive than anything she had ever worn before. The dress was sleeveless, the neckline a modest cut that only let one glimpse the tops of her breasts, but it left a descent amount of her back uncovered, enough so that she felt open and exposed when she put the dress on, her arms too cold and the fine hairs at the back of her neck standing on edge at the sensation of the air upon her skin. The heels to finish the look had taken some use to walking in – and even more to dance in – but she could hold her own now. And they did add a certain grace to her stride, forcing her body to sway as she stepped . . .

She finished the look with a simple strand of pearls around her neck, resting against the hollow of her throat, hinting at wealth without boasting of it.

And finally, she looked like a woman when she stepped back from the mirror in order to judge her appearance. She looked like a woman . . . a woman named Miranda and not the girl Talia who played at swords and knives and knew more of the dark parts of the world then women three times her age, no matter what their smiles hinted at.

_Miranda_, she breathed . . .

. . . and Miranda she became.

When she stepped out into the hall beyond it was with an elegant stride, her head tilted high into the air and her jaw a strong line where it met her throat.

Beyond her door, Ubu and her father were already waiting for her. Ubu was the first to beam over her appearance, resplendent himself in a tuxedo of his own, and decidedly handsome in an exotic way – a way she would not have attributed to the assassin before this night. "You look utterly enchanting, child," Ubu praised, leaning forward to brush a kiss across the back of her hand, a very real affection in his eyes as he stepped aside to let Ra's look over his daughter. "As lovely as a dream."

"And just as deadly, we can hope," Ra's added, looking her over critically before nodding sharply in approval. He too was dressed for the night, wearing a black tuxedo with a long cream coloured scarf draped about his shoulders, easily claiming to a haughty elegance like one born to it. Even so, his eyes were still the same, as if he wore armor instead, and Talia stood up straighter under his searching gaze, meeting him stare for stare. There was a touch of a smile at his lips at the gesture from her, something sad in his expression that could have been fond – in another time, another place, perhaps - and she felt a pang in her side as she remembered her mother, and how much she must have looked like the ghost of Melisande in that moment.

But Ra's did not comment about the shadow loitering in the corridor with them, one way or the other, and Talia did not ask. She merely breathed in deep, and smoothed her hands down her side, feeling the satin of her gown cool and slick to the touch. She felt like a wolf in sheep's skin in that moment, convinced that any who looked hard enough could see her teeth, could see the claws beneath white wool if they all but glanced with her with the intention to search.

Her thoughts were cut short by the sound of marching footsteps, the cadence of soldiers, even if not one of the League were dressed to that part. Bane and four of his men were walking down the hall to them, the men dressed as members of the wait staff, and Bane as nothing particular – wearing the dark clothes he normally favored when doing the bidding of the League. His mask made it hard for him to walk about disguised, but he had a knack for hiding in plain sight when needed. He would hide that night, until she drew the man away, and then . . .

Talia fisted her hands. She forced her pulse to be a river, perfectly calm, perfectly serene, with nary a ripple to its surface.

She could feel his gaze on her back as they came close enough to make a definite image. She imagined that she could feel it like a flamepoint against her skin as his eyes traced from the exposed skin of her back, finding the highs and lows of her spine and following them up to the curve of her neck, the teasing strands of her hair that had escaped her coil to touch her skin. The pearls she wore were a garrote, catching his gaze where they made a shadow against her throat, like dots on a map, invited a traveler nearer.

And she inhaled. Her pulse raced and her skin itched. When she fisted her hands, she could feel the acrylic points of her nails bite into her skin, as if seeking blood.

"This dress feels like a net," she said when Ubu's eyes flickered between her and the masked man with a interest that was based in amusement where her father's was decidedly not. "But the heels could be weapons in of themselves - I could become very used to them." She smiled sharply, trying to offer a light comment where she could feel Bane's eyes drinking her in, as if trying to devour her whole

Her breath was thick in her lungs. Her heart struck a staccato beat, and she turned . . .

To see Bane resolutely looking at her father, and not her at all. "All is done as you have asked," he said, addressing Ra's as if she were not there at all, and Talia felt a rise of irritation fill her, although she knew not why. She bristled, her blood rising to her cheeks, even as Ra's nodded his head at the strongman, pleased.

"Then we are ready," Ra's waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. "Let's move."

That was her cue. Ubu stepped forward, and offered his arm, and with a bow of her head she twined her arm through his own. She turned to stare down the hall, her eyes set stonily ahead, and she did not look back, even as she could feel Bane's eyes on her, watching . . .

She squared her jaw, and told herself she did not care. She had a job to do now, a part to play, and thoughts of her masked friend would only set a sour look on her face.

In the end, her assignment went like clockwork, just as Shiva said it would – just how Ra's and the senior council had planned it to be. Ubu left her alone by the banquet table, and Talia had only to reach for a glass of champagne before one was being handed to her by her mark. She smiled like so, and watched Asad's eyes fall like such. She tilted her head, and shaped her eyes as if to invite, giving a false name and a false story, and then he was asking her to dance, and she was accepting.

Her role that night was part of a larger dance as a whole, a battle in the finest sense of the word, but easier to predict in its outcome. It was odd, even so, pulling the man along as if he had a string knotted under his rib, connected to her fingers, with her having but to snap on that thread for her will to be obeyed. She had been told by many that she was beautiful, but the idea was still an abstract thing to her, even after all this time – an age old instinct in her still thinking to shave her head and bind her figure. Mirrors had been far off things in the Pit, and beauty an even more dangerous thing at that, like her mother, with her lovely eyes and sad mouth . . .

And again, beauty was lethal as she danced. But the man in her arms knew not of that, knew not of the daggers hidden behind her smile, the spearpoints behind her hands.

She was able to hold herself through one waltz and then another with a strange man leading her. This was not Ubu and his mentoring ways, nor was it Bane with her eyes closed tight and his familiar voice in her ear, lifting her up . . .

Her heart skipped oddly at the thought, her breath rising as if trying to strangle her, and instantly her cheeks flushed at the memory.

Asad's slim hands on her waist became a weight, a phantom caress in her memory made tangible with another man's hands against her skin. She closed her eyes and could hear the echoing hiss of a breath as it was stolen through a mask . . . she could see dark eyes looking on her own and not brown and warm like the man before her now. She felt her cheeks flush pink as her imagination ran free from her, and it was not an actress' trick that had her pulse raising, her breathing quick, but real emotion, tangible and thick as Asad led her away from the dancing couples . . .

She knew what was to come, and her mouth spoke the words as if it were not her mouth. Her eyes promised and his hungered as he led her through the halls to his room . . .

It did not take much after that – his hands reached and hers denied. Her mouth burned where he attempted to kiss, and instead of affection returned there was steel in her hand and a blow in her mind.

His skin split as easily then as it would have during a battle, and Talia forced herself to hold his eyes as he whispered _Miranda_ like a question, surprise in his eyes as he reached out a hand to grasp for the pearls at her throat as his body betrayed him, twitching and bleeding and _failing _him and the world turned sickeningly before her -

And then she was backing away from his corpse as Bane and his men stole silently into the room behind her. She turned from the still open eyes, and reached up a hand to touch the pearls at her neck, bloodied and sticking to her skin . . .

The blade made such a sound as it clattered to the floor. And _Miranda _faded as Talia turned, and escaped from the room.

.

.

The sand was white and pure under her feet, but the rolling ocean swam before her eyes as if taunting her. Her stomach turned. Her eyes hurt in her face as she tried to focus on that line where the sea met the starlit sky.

As soon as she reached the sand, she kicked her shoes off, letting them fall forgotten in some distant shadow as she stumbled a step and then another after parting the unnatural arch from her feet. She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, cleaning the lipstick that had darkened her mouth. There was a red smear on her hand when she drew it away, and she felt her stomach give a lurch upon seeing it. It was a tacky, sticky stain left on her skin, and when she reached down to wash it off in the surf, her stomach heaved with the too quick motion.

She lost the contents in her dinner then – and she reflected miserably that she did not want crab and lobster again for a long, _long _time.

She sat there for some time, soiling the knees of her dress in the sand and feeling the surf rise to lap at her hands, deep in the sand. With a face, she wiped at her mouth with the saltwater, wincing at the taste but glad for anything to take away the taste of bile. The pearls she wore were choking her. She made a fist as she pulled them from her neck with a savage gesture, and threw them out into the waves.

There was a shadow joining her own as the pearls splashed in the deep, swallowed by the ocean and her waves. Bane said nothing, but Talia could feel his eyes, could feel his question, and she inhaled shakily before trying to explain.

"I do not know why I am affected so," she said miserably. "I am no stranger to death, and the man was a pig. He deserved the fate that the League prepared for him."

And had she faced him in the ballroom and shouted to him her challenge, would she have then found her stomach turning over the life she would take? Combat, she was no stranger to. Killing to survive, that too was necessary, and she was far from a stranger to death and her ways.

But she remembered Asad's hand as it stroked her cheek, even if the tenderness was that for a night and a night alone . . . and she felt . . . guilty? Was this guilt? Was this the burden that lesser men faltered under when they were faced with what had to be done?

Next time, she would twist the blade deeper and kill away the weakness in her. For now she breathed in deep and slow, and tried to calm the turmoil in her stomach.

"That man was not innocent," Bane said gently. He did not reach out to comfort her, to sooth her, but his presence was enough – her eyes drinking in his shadow on the sand even as she tried not to look out at the water, lest the rolling of the waves do her a disservice again.

"And had I met him in open battle with my intentions clear, I would not feel as I do now," Talia laughed dryly. "I do not understand why this death – over all others, affects me so."

Bane was silent, but she could feel the weight of his eyes. She got to her feet, and wished that she had more than seawater to wash her mouth with. The salt stuck to her tongue, making it sharp. Her stomach still rolled, but no longer did it look to betray her. How long had she walked the shadows and their ways? She did not understand why hands so stained could effect her so now. She brushed her wet hands on her dress, still tasting copper on her skin when she had tried to wash her mouth.

"Do you ever feel it?" she asked then, trying to put the thoughts in her mind into some semblance of order. She looked down at her fingers, flexing them straight and then curving them into a fist again. "The blood on your hands?"

Silence passed, pregnant and weighing. "Not for a long time," finally he answered.

_Of course_, she reflected. For how could he regret a loss of life when it was done for her and her name? For her father's approval in order to continually earn his place at her side? Honesty was a blow of its own and Talia felt her stomach turn as she thought of how completely his shadow was snared with hers . . . Had he ever wanted it to be otherwise? Had he ever regretted the bond he had with the Pit's only child?

Did he ever feel this way? With his hands stained and his stomach turning and the sea before him just so _endless_? A new irritation bloomed in her, one that was far from Asad and his surprised eyes. This one was older, pooling like hurt in the deep of her.

"You could leave tonight," she finally said, her voice catching on the end of her thoughts and bringing her mind to the open air between them. Her laugh was dry and brittle when it fell from her mouth. It struck like a blow. "My father would probably even prefer it. He would toast your name and your continued health. You need not stay here any longer." _With me_, the thought was unspoken on her tongue, just barely held in her mouth.

Bane looked oddly at her, but he did not ask which root her words had sprouted from. He simply weathered the storm of her temper, of the emotions she herself could not properly explain. "All I care for is here," he said at last, addressing the words behind her words. "Who would protect you else wise?" And his words turned with distaste there. He had not agreed with the assassination that eve – for any assassin waiting in the dark could have done what she had done. The whole thing was practice for her – a rehearsal for a dance more dangerous than this one. And its steps were those he did not believe she had to partake in. He had tried to protect her from this path.

Her blood slithered in her veins, though she knew not why. Always was she so to him? The child to protect, the little girl to keep safe? Was she such a burden to him? Did he feel nothing but _responsibility _for her soul?

She remembered the dance in her room, how her heart had thundered and how her veins had flowed with heat. She remembered too how the urchin had kissed her and Bane had been silent their whole journey back from Kabul as if to seethe . . . Would he view this new affection within her as childish need? Would he return it as the same? Did he already? And if he did not, what right did she have to ask even more of him when he already given all?

Her thoughts were a pain where actual blows were not. And so she bared her teeth against them. When she spoke, she wanted her words to slither – to wind and ensnare like ivy, just like her words earlier had seduced the dead man. "You wanted to kill him, did you not, my friend?" she finally asked, her voice low, aimed to wound. "You were disappointed that the blade was not in your hands when his life ended."

"I was not displeased at his death," Bane said carefully, his eyes narrowing as he watched her from the corner of his gaze, like one would watch a serpent uncoiling.

"Please, be honest," she said, stepping closer until she shared his shadow. She could hear the artificial breath of his mask, she could feel it as she raised herself up higher to look him in the eye. "Did you hate it?" she asked, her voice low, fit to wound. "Did you hate thinking that I was dressed so for another man? Did you hate that my words were for him? My dance? Did you want to kill him for the thought of his hands on my skin?"

His eyes were hard then, and normally where she could read all, they were blank to her, carefully hidden away and clouded. And she dared him to call her the child whose safety was his own. She dared him to say that she was nothing but a burden to him . . . she wanted to hear the words and then she could end the spiraling voices in her head and _know._

"Tell me, did you wish to kill him?" she asked, and then her voice broke on the edges, a child unsure, with pearls and blood in the sand, and her stomach swimming – but it wasn't guilt, but _fear . . ._

She tilted her head up, and felt her pulse spike, fit to strike when he raised his hands . . . but not to push her away. He held one finger to her lips, as if to silence her. His frame before her was too tight, the tender gesture at odds with the tension in his limbs. He held himself as he would before a battle, as he had when she was a child and they picked out paths in the wall before them, as he had when he had told her that she must climb, and never look down again.

And her mouth burned at his touch as it had not that entire night through. Her mouth burned, and that too warm thing in the pit of her stomach flared, and she _wanted_ as she had not since she had risen from the darkness of the Pit, and -

"Do not," he said slowly, his voice rasping as his mask tried to translate emotion into sound and failed, "Do not ask questions which you are not yet ready to know the answer to."

His words were a whisper, and his thumb was just as soft as it traced over her bottom lip. His eyes fell to watch the caress, but still they were hidden from her. They were too dark. The ocean behind her was like a heartbeat, constant where hers was skipping wildly in her chest. Her breath caught.

And he stepped away from her as if burned. He fisted his hands, as if to keep them still, before inclining his head – a farewell. And then, he turned, and walked back the way they had came, turning back to the resort and its walls, and the work that was still there to be done.

And Talia stood, fixed in her place as if she had roots in the sand, her heart hammering and her lips tingling. She wanted to scream then. She wanted to cry. She wanted to run after him and have him explain his words, explain the too warm flare of feeling inside of her. She did none of that. Instead, she reached down to pick up her shoes from the sand, and wiped them against the soiled material of her dress so that she could don them again.

He retreated, and she followed silently, the hunt gone from her stride. Behind them both, the ocean lapped hungrily at the shore long after they were gone.

.

.

Her next missions she went on with just Ubu for backup. This mark was smaller than arms dealers and their wide circles, and she knew that her target was more for practice again rather than anything else – a chance again for pretty smiles and coy words and a blade in the night. She looked this one in the eye when she killed him, let him see the knife and have his chance. Someday, she would be able to do away with even that.

Shanghai was all glittering lights and neon lights and overwhelming towers – a jungle of metal and chrome and rust and she hated it with a passion that she did not know she possessed. She wished for the open air of the mountains again, the brilliance of the night sky when not chased away by the artificial glow of the city all around her. She had never felt completely at ease in large cities, and she had never stayed in them for longer than she had to before.

This time, her mission took close to two weeks - she building her alias and her relationship with her target like a tragedian in some grand opera, and halfway through the first act, she included a package of her own along with Ubu's reports back to Ra's - a short Chinese broadsword called a _dao_ which she had picked up from an antiquities shop during her tour of the city with Ubu. _"So you can stop stealing mine,"_ was the only note she included, the teasing words causing a lightness to bloom in her chest with the departure of the gift.

She was not sure what precisely she was striving to atone for, but she felt the need to offer something – anything, really. Even in her gifts, she gave steel, but she knew that he would see the offering for what it was, and at that she knew peace.

She kept the windows unveiled in their suite that night, and pretended that the lights of the city were stars and the wall at her back was a body, immovable as stone, and barely, just barely, she found sleep again. She had grown used to such falsehoods by that time.

.

.

By the time she returned to the monastery, Bane was already gone on a mission of his own – something involving a politician who had come to quarrel with Ra's and was now reaping the worse of it.

But there was a postcard from Makhachkala included in the reports for Ra's, with a football stadium of all things on the front, and Bane's neat hand proclaiming that it was not a terribly awful sport to watch.

And so, the chasm stilled, for a little while.

.

.

Two months passed in this manner – with them circling each other like the moon to the earth, pulling on each other and yet never touching. Talia would fall asleep by his side but wake up only hours later alone, and soon she gave up trying altogether, opting instead for sleeping with her back to the wall in her own room, with her eyes open on the horizon beyond. Where before he was the only one who would give her an honest fight in the sparring rings – each of her father's men too leery of inflicting to the Demonhead's daughter pain to be a real opponent – he was now cautious of her when landing his blows, and that was when she could get him to face her at all. The week prior, she had landed a truly mean blow to his throat that had deprived him of his breath and bruising when he had hesitated to put her in a hold when doing so would have brought him too close to her breasts. She hadn't apologized for the underhanded hit after, just turned on her heel and left, a voice in her head telling her that she was behaving as a child but unsure of what else precisely to do.

The day before Talia had been holding Shiva's child in the healer's wing of the monastery – the little girl who was the first in a line of genetically engineered soldiers for the League, the child being Shiva's ticket to a clean break from the clan of assassins who had furthered her education – marveling at the feeling of soft flesh and gurgled noises and _such small hands, _when Bane had come in for his monthly appointment with Healer Cain. The strongman had stilled in the doorway, taking in the sight of her and the child and the knives at her belt, before turning on his heel and leaving. Talia, who had known he would be there, but who had not planned the meeting – _she had not_ – felt something prickle in her side at the rejection, like a blade moving through her flesh.

Shiva, adapt at reading body language to the extent that was uncanny, had thankfully said nothing to her but to comment on how her grip on the infant had lessened. Talia had left when little Cassandra had started to cry, and her mother had taken the babe to silently hush her, anger in her step and her hands fisted at her sides as she stalked through the halls, more than a match for the mountain around them.

That night, Bane had been absent from dinner – as he was more and more often as of late, and those next to her had given her a wide berth (no doubt fearing for their hands) whenever she reached past them for food she didn't really taste as it went down. Where Bane was known to miss dining with his brethren, he was never one to shirk his duties with her and Ubu in the kitchens afterward when it was their turn, but that night he did, and Talia threw cutlery and porcelain bowls into the soapy water and scrubbed with a vigor that was all stone walls and the teasing sky overhead – that was, until Ubu had taken the scrub brush away from her and sent her on her way before she did to the dishes a blow. She had felt her cheeks flame with her embarrassment, but thankfully the assassin said nothing about her black mood – though she knew that her father would be hearing a full report of it later, and that more than anything else made the sick feeling in her side twist.

_Child_, her mind whispered at her, the insult like arrows through the air. _Silly and needy and weak_.

_Shut-up_, she had hissed back to the voice, and that night she had stayed awake looking at the stars beyond her window, higher than even what the mountains around them could reach to.

When Ra's pulled most of the senior members of the League away for a manhunt in the middle east, off of the shores of the Mediterranean, Talia was itching for the chance to leave the mountains and do something productive with her hands. When Ra's named her with the others who would be accompanying him she had all but jumped at the opportunity to do something that did not involve dancing and a hidden blade at a man's side. She strapped into her armor and her strong boots and felt her skin settle over her bones as they made their way west.

She was grouped into the secondary team, along with her father and Ubu, and the day was just slipping into night when they were driving up the coast to where Bane had a primary contingent of the League's men in the port city of Tartus. They had been days ahead of Ra's, spearheading the search for a man named Ebeneezer Darrk, one of her father's most devoted disciples and favorite students, who had come to quarrel with Ra's teachings to the point of distention, taking a small group of the League's men with him when he left. They had been tracked to the ruins that dotted the landscape northeast of Tartus – a network of abandoned buildings that had gone back to the time of the crusades, and some even older still, to the ancient kingdoms who had once ruled the lands.

Ra's' convoy had been hugging the curves of the sea as they made their way north from where they had flown in from Lebanon, the dark of the night and the hushed whisper of the Mediterranean a soft and eerie backdrop to the expectation of death in the air. The very air around them seemed to whisper, still and silent as a hundred beings with teeth and scales prepared to march out into the night.

And, of course, their jaws could not be closed for too long. Their convoy only made it five kilometers north of the Syrian border before their caravan of trucks came under attack.

At first, Talia had only registered that the flare of gunfire looked like red ants flying off into the night. The ambush was color and sound and the smell of smoke and metal as orders were shouted, and a strong hand pushed at her shoulder, shoving her away from the cacophony of the battle from behind them. Ra's moved and Ubu yelled something she could not make out, and then they were all tumbling out of the truck when an explosion lit the night behind them, a shot from an enemy rocket launcher having found its aim and tearing through its target. Talia felt her heartbeat spike when she thought about flame and gas, and -

"Get down!" Ra's exclaimed, pushing her behind the nearest overhang on the rocky terrain, the boulders making some shielding against the bright explosion that followed, hot steel and ash raining down on their shoulders like rain in a storm. Instinctively, he shielded her from what the rockface left exposed, and Talia curved into herself like a ball – like she had when she was a child and the stares in the Pit became too much, and then the shadow of her father was moving, and the glare of flames from behind them was like a golden hand in the night, turning its palm upwards to light up the sky.

The moment passed, and Ra's looked down at her long enough to hiss, "Stay down," in a voice that bore no argument, his icy eyes narrowed as if to further enforce the command, though he needed not. Talia was trained for combat in close quarters – and her double swords and her tinny dagger were her weapons of choice. She knew that firearms had their place in combat, and that place was not one that had ever burdened her past the basics she knew of aiming and hitting her target.

So, Talia kept her two small pistols close to her chest while she curled in on herself, becoming a part of the rocky landscape around her. The shadows embraced her while she looked on the battle beyond her. Her heartbeat thundered in time to the waves just beyond them rather in time to the unnatural thunder of the firefight. Her eyes were adept in the dark, more those of a hunting animal's than anything more human – a gift from the Pit that did her a service rather than a discredit.

And that was why she saw them before they saw her.

Darrk's goons, she recognized the faces of the men who had left Ra's table for that of a traitors, and she felt her blood pulse with anger when she recognized those whom she had fought against and alongside, whom she had called Brothers, born as they all were by the shadows. They were talking quickly and lowly in Urdu, the language of the mountains not yet leaving them, even when the sand and the sea were warm and tropical scents in the air instead of the ice of Tibet.

Instinctively, Talia curled in closer on herself, cocking the safety on her pistol and quieting the adrenaline in her veins. Her eyes narrowed.

A canister hit the ground just past her hiding place, and Talia felt her heart skip as she realized what was happening – gas grenades. She glanced up, and felt the pieces fall into place when she saw Darrk's men strap masks on their faces, and she felt adrenaline spike as the cold flame at the core of her whispered _run_.

And so, she pushed through the rockface and ran.

Gas filled the air around her, and she placed her arm in front of her face and held her breath as tried to outrun the gas's hold. But the air traveled quicker than she could run. Fog billowed before her, sullying the air she breathed, and she felt her lungs burn with the urge to inhale.

_One breath._

She heard steps behind her, pursuing.

_Two breaths._

The rocky shore beneath her turned threatening, as if the rocks were fingers pulling at her feet, trying to cause her to stumble.

_Three breaths._

Her stride turned drunkenly. She gasped.

The fourth breath forced her to her knees.

She choked and tried to fight past the black spots that were blotting before her eyes. Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. She felt dislocated from her skin.

A fifth breath, and she fought the urge to close her eyes . . . No longer was the rock cutting under her hands. Her fingers had lost their desperate hold about her weapons. She felt hands at her arms, at her sides, voices muddled together above her.

A sixth breath, and the mechanical sound of breath being drawn through a mask filled her ears, and the sound set her teeth on edge. It was too sharp, it was _not right_ . . .

And then she closed her eyes, and saw no more.

.

.

Talia awakened in Tripoli, Lebanon - a location she was only told later by Ubu.

She opened her eyes to the interior of a warehouse, which could have been anywhere in the world, and her mind was still too clouded to lend to her a logical deduction. The scent of water was strong in her nose, and past the high industrial windows she could make out the shape of palm trees, fluttering in the stiff breeze that blew in from the sea beyond them. There was sand underneath her fingernails when she flexed her hand against the ropes that bound them. Her wrists were chaffed, as if she had struggled long and hard, even with the drug she could still feel clouding her eyes, making her heartbeat too slow, her hands too unsteady.

Around her, she still heard the rolling tones of Urdu, joined by the local Arabic languages and a spattering of more earthy dialects she could not make out without concentrating. And concentrating was so far behind her when she needed to rest . . . she just needed to rest.

The next time she registered conscious thought, there was the quick flare of gunfire around her – shouted orders from one side and the next, and her mind struggled to work past the haze that had surrounded it, thinking only _escape_ and _caged_ and _I must climb_.

But her limbs were too heavy, even moving her fingers was a great work. Her eyes rolled drunkenly in her head, and her breath was sweet smelling with the drug that kept her so.

She flinched when there was a hand at her shoulder, moving to check her pulse, fingers warm at her throat and her wrist. She tried to form words, but she was hushed as the sounds of the battle still tickled at her ears from beyond them. The bonds at her wrists and feet were cut with sure efficiency, and she was lifted over a broad shoulder and carried away from the sound of the fight – of the living and the dying and those warring.

And finally, when the sunlight broke over her face she could make out the unnatural whirl of tiny mechanics; the hiss of gas, and that, _that_ was what such a thing should sound like. She felt her heart beat sluggishly in through her stupor, warming her past her very skin, and wondered if this was how he had to fight to see the world as she let her hand curl uselessly against his neck where she tried to make a fist. She tried to whisper, she tried to say that she was okay – she thought so many things, but her tongue could only force a whispered breath from her mouth. She felt boneless, without strength left to her as her eyes fell closed again.

Then they were moving, and the task of staying awake was too much for her to bear. She leaned her head against him, and knew no more.

.

.

Her abduction put a temporary halt on the search for Ebeneezer Darrk, but not for long.

She had been only a day past leaving Healer Cain's wing of the monastery, and she wore a comfortable wool sweater over her normal wear, a steaming cup of po cha (a strong black tea with yak butter that the locals specialized in) in her hands that warmed the far reaches of her that her time in Tripoli had left cold. She sat quietly to Ra's' left while different reports were given to the Demonhead – Ebeneezer had moved his men, both those from the ruins outside of Tartus, and the few left alive from Tripoli to further south, to the catacombs that decorated the cliffs that rose above the Lipiti river. The senior members of the League were discussing tactics and weak points while their leader listened on in silence, each voicing their opinion on how to employ their men for the surest strike to ensure a quick and painless victory before Ra's would make a decision from the collected elements.

While Talia sat on Ra's' left, Bane sat in the seat furthest from Ra's, with his eyes trained steadily on the information before him. He had not met her eyes when he walked into the room, and he had not looked up at her since, even though Talia watched him more than she paid attention to the words being spoken, wishing that he would just look up so that she could catch his gaze. He had not visited her in the time she was in Healer Cain's care, though she could have sworn that she heard the deep breath of his mask while she slept. But that could have been her own imagination, fickle as it was as she was weaned off from the drug's hold over her subconsciousness.

Ubu had since told her that Bane had been at the front of the force who tracked her down, and it had been he that had carried her from the warehouse . . . Again, he was there when she was in danger, but when she wished for a friend, he was gone. Talia pursed her lips, and felt determination fill her, stronger than her uncertainty and her confusion. Something had altered between them, and she was not yet ready to let that go to pass.

She trained her eyes on the curve of his mask, the gleam of light off of his bare skull, and thought of the walls of the Pit, so many years ago. Silently she decided that this would be no different.

Ubu had just finished pointing out the highlights from their scout's information when he finally straightened from his maps, collapsing the pointer in his hand with a click of sound, drawing her attention back to the meeting at hand. "Do you wish for a contingent of men to be sent?" Ubu finally asked his leader outright. "The Seven Hands have just returned from Benghazi and are most eager to lend their services to end this man's life. Or your own squadron has been resting since Ulaanbaatar, they can be assembled within the hour to depart."

"That will not be necessary," Ra's waved his hand, his brow creased in thought from where he had leaned forward in order to prop his elbows up on the table before them. His hands were steepled, pressed to his chin, while the high back of his chair threw a long shadow from him, as if to give him the sharp wings of a bat.

Ubu's dark brow dipped in thought. "My liege," he said carefully, "I am not sure how well an intermediate squadron will hold up underneath the experience and ferocity of Darrk and his followers. If not the Seven or yours, then -"

" - Bane will go," Ra's finished for the other man, his voice smooth and oiled, and instantly Talia set her tea down at the tone, her eyes narrowing as warning prickled at her skin.

"A wise choice," Ubu said – for all knew how personal the matter of Darrk was to the masked man. Talia had been taken when he had not been by her side, and he wished for blood now. "Bane and the Seven then? Along with a contingent of support, that would be a wise force to go against Ebeneezer -"

"I said, Bane will go," Ra's interrupted, his voice mild, as if talking about the snow beyond the monastery walls. "Bane, and Bane alone."

Ubu's surprise was instant, and he echoed dumbly, "Bane alone?" while around the table the others of Ra's inner circle just barely curbed their words in order to peer curiously at their leader.

Talia had no such bonds holding her mouth. Instead, she was the first on her feet, speaking where silence had been expected of her. "That is a fool's mission!" she protested, the words leaving her mouth without a thought. "If you send him as such, you send him to die – it is a waste."

"If Bane thinks that the mission is not to his liking, then he has every right to decline it."

"That too is a fool's move," Talia retorted. For declining the wish of the Demonhead – or failing in a mission and surviving both meant ex-communication and an eventual death when Ra's spared the men to track you down and end your life.

It was unacceptable.

"The price each man pays for the League is high," Ra's said in a tone that brokered no argument.

"And he has paid more than most," Talia hissed, her voice falling from her mouth as if her tongue was forked, her mouth fanged. She bore venom in her eyes.

"Yes, he has - but for you, and you alone, not for the League and our cause, as you so often like to point out," when Ra's met her eyes, his own were cold, like the glaciers right beyond their walls. "Now, he can serve you again, by ending the life of the man who endangered yours."

Talia seethed, her hands turning to fists by her sides when Bane stood, drawing all eyes to him. He did not look at her, but rather at Ra's, his dark eyes clear, like a storm as it built on the horizon. "I will go," was all he said, his words simple. "I will go, and I shall see that Ebeneezer's head is brought back to you."

Talia exhaled through her nose, her expression murderous as she stepped back as if she had been struck. Next to her, Ra's inclined his head at the masked man's words, triumph in his eyes, and Talia felt her blood come to a boil as the cold flame inside of her _burned_.

"Do not fail me," was all that Ra's said, and then he stood as well, ignoring her seething eyes as he waved a hand, calling the meeting to a close. He turned and left, not sparing either of them a glance, and Talia stared at his turned back as if her narrowed eyes could be a blow in of itself. The rest of Ra's' council filed past her, none of them meeting her eyes but for Ubu, who shrugged in defeat before hastening his stride in order to catch up to Ra's. Talia knew the assassin would try to overturn her father's decision, but it would be no use. The Demonhead had a will of stone that Talia bore in her own chest, around her own heart, and she knew that there were no words to pierce that veil once it had been drawn.

Bane lingered, and finally he turned to look at her. Fuming, Talia let her eyes fall from where her father had been to where the strongman now stood, her gaze like a wave as it struck upon the shore.

"You will not go," she said to the silence between them, her words striking like a blow as she thought of Ra's and his will and how those around him bent to it. Always had the masked man shadowed her every step, but never once had she made a demand of him. Never once had she _ordered_.

Bane raised a brow at her, as if amused, and she had a sinking feeling in her gut when she realized that her control over him was like that the moon held over a wolf. He followed her because it was what he wished to do, but he was no beast tamed by her every whim. She could order him to do nothing.

The knowledge answered questions she had long since wondered at, but still she felt desperation claw at her throat when she realized that he truly did intend to take on Darrk and his followers alone.

He did not speak against her words, not right away. Instead Bane stepped closer to her, reaching over to hold her wrists, his thumbs resting where she had chaffed at her bindings and rubbed her skin raw. Bruises decorated her like bracelets, thick and purple and still raw and ready to bleed in the middle. The skin there ached, but she shivered at the contact and the tingle that threaded through her skin as a result. He had not directly touched her in so long, it seemed. And she had not realized how much she had missed it as that odd warmth in her stomach flared to life like a wind that blew upon a phoenix's ashes, coaxing the bird to life. She bit her lip.

"He hurt you," Bane said quietly, gently, his voice more of a rumble from his chest than anything that fell as sound from his lips.

"A wound that will heal," she trapped his hand about her wrist by bringing her other hand to hold over his, her fingers singing with the contact as it held. "A wound that needs only time."

"A wound that he will pay in blood for," when Bane spoke, the words were like a vow. His hand fisted about her wrist, and the skin there protested the sensation as it burned in a wholly different manner. Still, she did not draw away.

"And you think that you can march into his stronghold with nothing but your fists and your strength?" Talia finally snapped. "Darrk is one of my father's most accomplished students, and the men who left with him from my father's side are no mere hired guns. They are killers, shaped by the shadows."

"As am I," Bane said with a snort of laughter that had nothing to do with humor. "And I have beaten the mighty of your father before, little one. This shall be no different."

For the first time, the familiar endearment pulled at her skin, resting hollow in her ears. She did not like the shape of it as it sounded against the air, and in a moment of clarity she could admit that she wanted more. More than _child_ or _girl_ or _something to protect_. "Not like him," Talia shook her head, still disagreeing. "Not like this."

At her words, she felt despair rise high in her throat, stronger than any fear she had felt during her time away. She leaned forward, her forehead coming to rest at the skin right beneath his throat. Her head hardly reached his chin, but she did not feel tiny in his shadow, but rather complete, as if he was mass enough to fill in the empty places of her, the empty cauldron that she knew was her heart . . .

He released her wrist, and she brought her hands up to fist in the material of his vest. Slowly, very slowly, his arms came to rest around her, a tactile comfort that she did not know that she needed until then. For how could she explain that she held such a sick feeling in her gut at this? How could she explain her fear, gnawing at her bones like something living?

"It is not worth it," she finally whispered. "My father's wrath is nothing; I can spare you his ire, I can see that he sends someone else."

"Who else would be better to send?" Bane returned, she could feel his words as they rose from his chest, as they worked in his throat.

"At least you can go properly, with a squadron at your back," Talia returned. "Even Ubu and I accompanying you would be better than you, and you alone . . . "

She tasted acid in her throat at the words, and barely, just barely, she felt his arms tighten about her. She burrowed in closer to him, as if she could find a place for herself underneath his skin if she tried hard enough. Her heart was a stone in her throat, useless to her as it continued to beat. She had not held him in too long, she thought. Her arms were strong, but they were small when she tried to wrap them around him. Her heart hammered like a hummingbird's wings as she curved her fingers like talons in the fabric of his vest. _Don't go, don't go, don't go_, her heart beat against his chest. She felt her eyes burn, even though no tears fell. When was the last time she had cried? When she was little, and the dust of the Pit stung at her eyes? She could not remember. Even now, her desperation was just a dry burning, her grief a sick feeling in her chest.

And yet, his pulse was slow and steady before her. He was determined. She had not yet swayed his decision.

But Talia was desperate. "It is not worth it," she pleaded, her voice an airy thing that she did not recognise from her tongue. It was a mortal woman of flesh and bone who spoke so. It was not _Talia_ with her skin like a wall and her eyes like the sky, pitiless and so far above so as to not even feel a blow from the storms when they blocked out the sun . . . "Please, my father is not worth the devotion you give to him."

His sigh in return was rumbling against her cheek. It worked in his lungs before escaping. "Do not make the mistake of thinking that I strike for your father," he reached down to tilt her head up, hooking his first finger beneath her chin in the barest of caresses. "Whether it be now or ever."

There was more to his words. She could see them behind his eyes, she could hear them bud on his tongue, and at them she could feel that new warmth inside of her simmer, a low, slow burn.

"Then don't go," she whispered, looking up over the black shape of his mask to meet his eyes. Normally, they were open doors to her, telling her everything without reservation. Now, they were just dark. The warmth in her stomach banked, just slightly, as fear made a harsh fist over her lungs. She couldn't breath for a moment.

"Don't go," she whispered again, the words soft as she turned into him again, closing her eyes so that it was just his heartbeat in her ears and the hum of his mask above her head. She breathed in time to the sound; her breath shuddered in her lungs.

"Don't go . . ."

.

.

Talia found sleep slow in coming to her that night. She was exhausted when she left the war room with Bane, but she did not trust him to leave as soon as her back was turned, so she hugged his shadow for the remainder of the evening, not even leaving his side when her body demanded that she sleep, the stress of the last few days making her limbs heavy and her eyes blurry. He stayed by her side, but only just, and she could read the tension in his frame, even though she had spent an uncountable number of nights by his side before. She had stayed awake at first, distracted by the sound of his breathing and the heat of his body as she slept carefully by his side, trying her best not to touch him with such a thick feeling of tension in the room.

When sleep finally did catch up with her, it was far past midnight, and when she opened her eyes not much later, he was gone.

She sucked in a sharp breath at the realization, her eyes narrowing as she reached out a hand to touch the empty space beside her. The sheets were still warm. He could not have gone far.

And so she opened her eyes to the darkness, her decision made as she swung her legs out from underneath the covers. Instantly, she was fully alert and ready to move as she made her way silently back to her own room.

She didn't take much with her – she just slipped into her black leggings and top before strapping on her Kevlar armor – a custom uniform made for all of the League that sat over her like an extension of her skin. Over the armor she wore her thick Tibetan coat and her sturdy boots, hiding the warring shape of her over the ware of all in that area of the world. She didn't dare leave the monastery by normal means – instead she threw a line out of the window, and then used that to rappel down the side, her breath thick on the early morning air and her heartbeat a possessed thing in her chest.

She made her way down the mountain in the pre-morning blackness, only stopping in the hamlet to procure a jeep to make use of the snowy roads. Those who lived in the town were no stranger to her face, and they handed her the keys without questioning. Talia didn't bother to hide her face, a part of her still simmering and all but daring Ra's to come after her this time.

She only had to catch up to Bane at Kathmandu – the nearest airport where the League had bought out multiple companies in order to provide quick and unquestioned transportation around the world. It was easy enough to find the flight schedule from the tower and figure out which of the small craft Bane would be taking, and even easier to steal aboard and wait in absolute silence, absolute stillness until the plane lifted off and started to eat through its journey.

She did not venture out from her spot in the shadows until Bane was well over Afghanistan, the warm tones of the country below a sea of fire in the light of the rising sun. Without saying a word, Talia plopped down in the copilot's seat, meeting Bane's cross eyes with an even stare of her own.

"What are you doing here?" he asked the obvious, his voice crackling on the edges as his mask caught his anger and struggled to spin it into sound.

"My father had not wished you to return," Talia shrugged, the shoulderplates of her armor making a synthetic noise as she did so. The words were not bitter on her tongue – they simply _were_, and they no longer held any weight as she locked them away with the cold flame at the core of her, resigned as to the path ahead. "I am here to see that you return, safe and sound."

There was a furrowed line in Bane's brow. She could see the debate as it warred in his eyes. But he had gone too far to take her back, and she challenged him to do so with her eyes. She would only find her way to follow him again, and know more danger when following his shadow rather than stepping with him side by side. She thrust her chin out, set her jaw, and let him read her all without speaking a word.

"I do not need your protection, little one," his voice was resigned, but she still saw the fight in his eyes. She could imagine the stern line of his mouth, the ruined muscle in his jaw that would be twitching beneath his mask.

"Undoubtedly," Talia agreed, "but you would be lost without it, all the same."

"Indeed," Bane drawled dryly.

"Now," she said, spreading out the navigational maps that she had stolen from her father before leaving. "Let us discuss the course you are currently on, and how it can be improved."

.

.

They landed at the Kleyate airport in the afternoon. After that they drove as far as they could, before abandoning the vehicle to hike the rest of the way to their target, coming from the south of Darrk's base, where the river was rapid and violent in its course, its twists and turns frothing with white water as it lashed against the stone barriers of its cradle. It spun and wound through its path, and Talia and Bane picked their way north, following against the current, keeping to the strong crease where the canyon walls met the river floor. Beyond them there was a thundering noise from one of the tall gorges that made up the cliff face. The river tumbled down the rock there – making for one truly massive, narrow fall, made unique for the series of natural stone bridges that criss and crossed before the fall. In the cliff face, near the top, and then stretching on for leagues in every direction, there were a series of caverns and tunnels, where Ebeneezer had holed his men. The catacombs held natural entrances at the top of the cliffs – further to the north, and then again at the east, where Darrk and his men moved supplies and men through natural openings in the caves.

Talia and Bane instead stood staring up at the indomitable waterfall. There were two guards visible – and another half dozen not so visible, she would guess. There was one guard on the first natural bridge, about a hundred meters up, and the second was on the second bridge, another twenty meters above that. The security here was thin, where the brunt of Darrk's men would be patrolling the more easily accessible entrances in the caves. There were few who knew of Darrk's location who would consider coming up from the fall – even amongst her father's men, who would rather take their chances with stealth and brute force, rather than climbing against nature and her might.

But Talia had never been one to turn down a challenge, and really, it had been too long since she had such a climb.

"If you recall, little one, it was you and not I who managed to scale the walls of the Pit at long last," Bane reminded her amicably as they stood at the base of the gorge, looking up.

Talia felt her lips stretch as she saw a shadowed line of rock that ran beneath the waterfall – where the spray and the angry foam would keep them from the eyes of the guards until they wished to become seen. "You are welcome to go in through the other ways," she returned just as conversationally, "It may do you good to go through Darrk's men that way. Stress therapy, wouldn't it be?"

Bane's laughter was a rumbling thing in his throat. It hissed unnaturally through his mask. "And leave your shadow unguarded? I think not."

"Then we climb," Talia nodded her head sharply as she turned and attacked the stone wall. The natural footholds were enough for her to hoist herself up nimbly, one careful move at a time. The rock was slippery from the fall, and moss and lichen grew in slick handfuls where the rock had been made fertile through the mist of the pouring water. Talia felt her heart hammer as the water caressed the open parts of her skin – the back of her neck and the rise of her cheeks. Her braid was a sodden rope over her shoulder the higher and higher they rose, but she did not falter and Bane did not fall, and slowly but surely they made their way to the top.

Once they were level with the first bridge, Talia swung herself over from the wall next to the fall, and perched carefully on the crease where the bridge met the stone wall of the gorge. She braced herself there, trying not to look down at the chasm below them, where the water from on high was rushing to meet its end and resting place in the blue pool so far below them. For now, more dangerous than a fall and their climb, there were armored men who patrolled the bridges right beyond them, and it was that which held her attention and nothing else.

There was one man on the bridge before them, another at the one right above them. If she moved quickly, she could dispose of the man on the lower bridge before the one above knew he was gone.

So she breathed in deep, expanding her lungs and feeling as her ribs moved with the breath she held. And then, she counted.

_One . . . two . . . three . . ._

When she hoisted herself up onto the bridge, the guard's back was turned. He had just made it to her end of the bridge and was now turning back to prowl to the other side. Talia turned off any feeling within her, and reached out, kicking at the tender flesh at the back of the man's knees, before holding out a arm to catch him when he fell, hitting the pressure points in the crook of his elbow to make him drop his riffle, before moving higher to find the tender spots in his neck, a mercy as she jabbed in hard and let his body fall off the side of the bridge and down into the white cauldron of foam below.

Her heartbeat was slow as she looked up to the bridge above them, staying carefully in the shadow created where the bridge crossed their own. When Bane stepped silently up behind her, she tossed the riffle she had taken from the guard, and he caught it easily, looping it around his back with the rest of his arsenal. Shaking her head, Talia looked up, knowing that they would only have so long before the guard above realized his comrade was gone.

So from her belt she loosed a thin black line with a hook at the end. With a hiss, the grappling hook released soundlessly before shooting up into the rocky underside of the bridge above them. When she saw that Bane had set his line as well, she waved a hand, and they both rose towards the bridge. The underside was wet with moss and hanging lichen, but the thick vines and draping fungus made for more handholds as they swung themselves over, and then up, again.

The guard was facing Talia when she landed in a crouch on the bridge before him. She smiled sharply at his stunned expression – recognizing him as one of her father's former men, and said, "He is behind you," in a stage whisper, as if sharing a secret. His eyes widened at her words, and he instantly spun about, knowing that the beast was never far from the beauty, and -

He met the same fate as his predecessor, and Talia clucked her tongue in disapproval. "My father would have had him killed for incompetence sooner or later, anyway," she remarked idly to the air.

"And them?" Bane asked, nodding his head to where the cavern walls widened to reveal the tunnel entrance to the base. There was already shouting and the rounding of men, and a bullet landed in the stone wall not far from her head.

"Slow response time," Talia concluded, and then drew her dual pistols from where they had been holstered at her sides, "Utterly abysmal."

It was a mean firefight from a long distance, but she and Bane were able to make it to the lip of the tunnel, where Bane was finally close enough to fight with his fists, and then – ex members of the League or not – the fight did not last long as his fists struck and his blows met flesh, bowling through the ranks of Darrk's men like a force of nature as Talia picked daintily around the bodies, searching in the stone walls for the in she sought . . .

"There are more men coming," Bane said tersely to the air when he saw her still searching. "And I cannot hold every man in this base forever.

"You will not have to," Talia whispered, finding the weak spot in the wall by a bronze torch holder. She reached up and pulled, and the stone wall slipped away to reveal a secret passage – one of the secrets of the base that Ra's' scouts had found, which they had planned to exploit with a full team. But now, the secret ways through the rock would be the thing that made it possible for them to just maybe come out alive at the end. Only Darrk and his most trusted officers knew of these paths, but if his men were ordered to search the secret ways . . .

Well, they would just have to move quickly.

And so they moved. The ways were built by ancient kings and warlords, and so every few steps there were windows into the base beyond them – sometimes holes just large enough for the eyes to peer through, and sometimes whole frames which appeared to be framed paintings to the outside world which were really a double sided looking glass, letting them peer through while none could peer in. And noise traveled through the stone to reach their ears – Darrk's men were rallying, they were searching, tearing the base apart with a cold efficiency as they looked for the intruders and found them not. Talia felt her heart twist about in warning as she realized just how steep Darrk's numbers were. He had been recruiting since leaving the League, she concluded, which they had long since theorized about, but now knew for certain.

They had a small window of opportunity, she and Bane, and if not . . .

But such a thought had no place in battle, and so, she pushed it away. Forcing her mind to look in on the scene with a cold detachment, as if she were looking at figures on a chessboard, and not men of flesh and bone, with fire in their hands . . .

By the time they made it to the center of Darrk's stronghold, they had found Darrk himself – barricaded in what she assumed to be his council room, evident by the round table in the middle of the room and the charts and maps that littered the table and walls. This was the center of the spider's web, and at luck they were, with all of the doors leading into the room being barred and guarded from without, but utterly unprotected within.

They would only have this chance once.

Darrk was flanked by four guards, but four guards only. His weakness was his arrogance, Ra's had said when they were planning that first attack, outside of Tartus. And his arrogance would be his downfall now.

The backs of Darrk and his guards were turned to the secret entrance to the tunnels. It gave them not even a fraction of a second of advantage, but that fraction of a second was enough for Bane to get to work on the guards while Talia fired her first shot at the computerized mechanism of the door, sufficiently jamming it to Darrk's men beyond. When she turned, she expected the guards to turn towards her as well, but all four of them were busy keeping Bane at bay, the fight lasting longer than it had against the general troops at the entrance to the base. These men were League trained, backed with the belief of the righteousness of their cause, and they would not fall as easily as their brethren. But, fall they would, as all did before Bane and his strength. It was only a matter of time.

So Talia stepped forward to meet Ebeneezer Darrk and his first blow, catching his fist with her own and slipping under his arm to strike at his chest. The man was quick, though, nearly as quick as she, and he sidestepped her. He was a calm fighter, with a cool and collected fire, and once, he had been Ra's most valuable asset, given the missions that even the Seven were deemed not fit for. He had a broad, caramel colored face, and dark hair just streaked with grey at the temples, with warm colored eyes that now cooled in his face, taking her in with a detached interest as he returned her blows as if mocking her, playing with her as she switched techniques and styles on him in order to find something that would take him from his feet.

She merely needed to hold on against him, until Bane finished with the other four . . .

And she could tell the exact moment when Darrk stopped toying with her. He moved faster than her, his blows taking on a ferocity that made its ways past her defenses and her jabs in return. Talia had been trained and molded as far as her nature would allow, but the fact of the matter was that there were many out there still physically stronger than her, and Darrk was stronger than most, a battering ram with a single minded focus and determination, and an exact knowledge of the human body garnered from years and years of experience . . .

She knew she was in trouble when Darrk found that first pressure point on her body, and then that second and the third, dropping her to her knees as her legs buckled uselessly on her, her arms following suit as paralysis overtook her. He did not kill her, not yet, and a thread of awareness lit inside of her as just beyond her and Darrk, Bane stepped up his own attack. Dropping the second man. Then the third, and the fourth almost still . . .

Very few things caused Bane to lose control like her in danger, and as Talia felt her body betray her, her limbs turn weak and turn in on themselves, she had a very real fear as Bane turned incensed against the guards he was facing – his blows turned Herculean, his form turned chaotic and unpredictable, and she tried to get her mouth to work and stop him, to tell him that she was fine, that all was well, he only needed to _stay focused_.

For Darrk had a syringe in his hand as he stepped away from her, and she remembered how closely the Doctor had worked with Cain on more than one occasion as his taste for biological warfare and genetic manipulation had come to surface – for the betterment of the League at the time, but now -

"Bane!" she finally forced her mouth to shape the word in a scream, every muscle in her body straining with the effort, fighting against the paralysis' effects as she tried to warn him.

And Bane turned, following the sound of her voice and the ferocity within it. The four men he faced were dead, broken things on the ground, but Darrk was very much alive, and it took only him dodging a mighty blow once and then twice before the needle found purchase in her friend's neck, and . . .

Instantly, whatever was in the syringe was fast working. And she watched in horror as her friend's great form buckled, as he fell forward to kneel upon the ground, his breath wheezing from his mask as he lifted a shaking hand up to his mask, as if the venom within had started to pain him. Immediately, she had a sick feeling in her stomach as she theorized over just what exactly Darrk had dosed her friend with.

And, of course, she thought numbly, there was a reason that Doctor Darrk was such a formidable foe for the League to take an interest in his downfall. Of course, there was a reason that Doctor Darrk was chosen to be Bane's downfall in particular. There was a reason that one, even mighty as he, would not have returned from his keep alive.

Finally, Darrk turned from him to face her from where he had been watching Bane's pain with a detached sort of apathy. He wiped his hands down the front of his uniform, as if they had been sullied by his deed. Talia looked on him with a fire in her eyes that would have consumed if it had been tangible enough to touch. She drew her lips back in a grimace as Darrk tilted his head, regarding her curiously, an unkind smile at his lips. "Did you really think that your father had no contingency plan when it came to your masked friend here?" Darrk finally said. "Cain is mad, but he is unparalleled in his field, and in the end, it was as simple for him to create a reversal for the venom as it was for him to create the venom itself. One does not create a monster of Victor Frankenstein's proportions without knowing just where to press to lay the monster down again."

Of course. Talia processed the information numbly, such a rage in the core of her as the cold flame there _burned_. She felt fury and . . . betrayal lick at her veins, and at the latter she reeled sickly, even though she knew that she should have not been surprised. She should have expected as much herself, but . . . she had not. She felt helpless in that moment, watching her friend as his body betrayed him, as white foam leaked from the corners of his mask, and the tubes on his face buckled and bulged in unnatural shapes from the distortion of the drug within. Bane was breathing heavily, near hyperventilating as he tried to get control enough over his body and his pain to finish what he had started. But it was no use, underneath everything he was still just a man – mortal boned and blooded, and he could not fight his body's betrayal.

"Why are you doing this?" finally, Talia was able to move her mouth enough to speak. Slowly, very slowly, she could feel as sensation returned to the furthest parts of her limbs. She would be able to move soon, but not if Darrk capitalized on his window of opportunity and did away with them both.

But he was a fanatic, with a fanatic's gleam in his eye, and they over all else, relished in the urge to talk, to explain and commend themselves over their motives and their perfect plans.

"My father loved you once," Talia continued, trying to spark a reaction, trying to inflame an answer. "You were one of his foremost followers – his first student, his brother in all but blood. I do not understand what caused such a breach."

And Darrk snorted. "Your father is a weak man, and he has grown even weaker still in his affection over the past few years. The shadows allow no room for fondness, no room for familial emotion. I was there, in those months after your mother's sacrifice. He was a broken man, but the shadows picked him up and put him back together again – as they have for us all. And with that new found strength, an empire was born, a legacy, something as beautiful as Babel as it was raised towards the heavens. Long has the League fought against the dark points of humanity – and always has there been a Ra's al-Ghul, but Henri Ducard is the fiercest Demonhead since the first Ra's saw to it that Rome itself was felled, and Constantinople after it. Since the eleventh head saw that Napoleon was stopped, that Hitler was halted in his tracks. He took on that mantle, that legacy . . . and then forgot the very path he had set his feet on."

And then, and only then did Talia realize his error. Darrk was angry with her father and the League, but his motives were more than just a difference of philosophy. They were personal. He blamed her for her father's seeming weakness. That had been the reason Ra's had wanted her as far away from Darrk as possible, thus felling two birds with one stone when sending Bane to do the deed and ending the thorn in the League's side before it became something lethal.

But she only had to keep him talking. Already she could feel as sensation returned to her limbs. She would be able to move soon, but only if she stalled.

"Long has the League been a check to mankind when it has grown past what it should be allowed to do so. We are planning our most epic assault yet, one which we failed on years ago, but which we will not fail upon a second attempt . . . but your father . . . his caring for you blinds him, it hampers his vision. We were to be the surgeons, removing the tumor from the collective body of humanity before it became cancerous. Would Ra's see us dead in the end for such a perceived betrayal? Perhaps. But, once you were out of the way he would recover, he would move on, and he would lead the League as he was meant to – without hampering, without bias, and with a cold and collected mind."

At that, Talia laughed coldly. "Have you met my father? Nothing he does is steeped in fondness, or favoritism. Your fears have sadly fallen far from their mark."

And Darrk shook his head. "Then tell me why, _why _does that beast of a man still live," he flung his hand at Bane, as if swatting at a fly. "And not only does such a man still live, but he is allowed to carry on the holy business of the League, he is allowed to carry out its secrets and deeds, when he has not of belief of us or our cause. Ra's should have killed him years ago, and yet he did not – because of his affection for _you_. It is a weakness," and the word was spat. "A weakness which the Demonhead can afford not to have of."

Darrk stepped forward menacingly, and Talia tested the muscles in her arms, in her legs, and felt them sluggish to her response. Her heart hammered, and she willed to herself calm as Darrk turned from her in order to step towards Bane. He leaned over to take one of the long blades that had done no good in the hands of his men, resting silent and cold next to its wielder's corpse, and Talia felt the cold flame within her spike in warning in regards to his intention.

"And so, Ra's will dub me a traitor, and a villain, but I will do what he himself is not strong enough to do. And the shadows will rise again."

Another step towards Bane, another and another.

And Talia summoned control over her own body. She willed it to move, to fight, to act, to_ climb_. . . Her limbs were sluggish in response to her commands, but even still she forced herself to reach over to where her pistol from earlier had fallen in the fight. Her fingers curled over the cold hilt. She aimed . . .

And she aimed true.

She missed the image of Darrk's body hitting the ground. Instead she heard it, a low thunder in counterpoint to the men right beyond them trying to make their way through the barricaded door. Instead, she was already on her feet, willing feeling to return to her limbs as she hastened to where Bane was lying. He was unconscious, she was both relieved and dismayed to see – she felt relief that he was not in conscience pain, but dismay at the thought of the path before them and how they were not out of this by a long shot yet . . .

There was a white film left on the tubes of his mask from where the foreign compound had bubbled over, and his eyes were glassy and far away when she checked them for a response. His pulse was slow and sluggish and his skin was clammy to the touch, but whatever Darrk had dosed him with had yet to kill him . . . For small mercies, Talia counted her blessings as she looked around her, looking for anything that would help her carry her friend . . .

Instantly spotting a makeshift solution, Talia went over to the thick tapestries that lined the wall, giving the cavern stone the appearance of normalcy. Bane was too heavy for her to move without aid, but she was not without resources, and she would not leave him behind, even when her skin itched and crawled with the need to get _away_, away from the blood staining the floor and away the weight of their task and the failure it was supposed to bring. She clenched her jaw, feeling her teeth too thin in her mouth before she drew her lips back, glowering at the russet tones of the tapestry in her hands.

As quickly as she could, half an ear turned to the goings on right beyond the room, she stretched the tapestry out on the floor, and with a huff she rolled Bane onto the cloth. "I must commend Ubu on his cooking the next time we meet," she said between her teeth, the black humor soothing the too quick thing that was swimming in her veins. "He is more accomplished than we would normally acuse him of being."

When he was settled, she balled the two corners of the tapestry in her hand and made a fist, and started the task of dragging Bane back through the tunnels. She was able to shut the mechanism of the secret way behind the painting just in time for Darrk's men to burst through the barricaded door in a flare of flame and black smoke.

A heartbeat, and she heard the cry go up – Darrk was dead.

"They will want blood now," she said to the shadows and the walls, her heart skipping.

She dragged Bane with a new haste in her stride, but her progress was slow due to the bulk of her friend and the rockiness of the terrain that she tried to travel. The secret ways seemed even longer on the way back than they had on the way in, when every step had seemed like it would bring the whole of Darrk's hive of men on them.

Talia bit her teeth, and clenched her fingers tighter over the tapestry as she dragged her friend on. Her fingers ached and the skin on her palms was raw, but it was a small price to pay. The muscles in her arms burned, but she did not stop, she could not stop . . .

When they finally made it to the rocky outcropping that led to the bridge – the lowest of the natural walkways, thankfully a pier lower than the one they had made their way in on, Talia felt her heart sink as she looked down, all the way down to the cauldron below. In her head, she had thought that there was less of a drop between the bridge and the pool beneath. There was no way she could carry Bane down that climb. Even if her friend was as slight as she, it would be impossible. And a jump was out of the question – they were very nearly a hundred meters in the air . . .

There was no chance of her surviving the fall, she thought numbly. From such heights, it was not the fall itself to worry about, but rather the likelihood of broken bones or concussions from the impact against the water – drowning killed more than the fall itself, and Talia bit her lip as she did the math and found the numbers to be ill to her liking. They would hit the water at such a speed . . . and that was before they had to deal with the currents and the violent undertow of the cascading water – which fell from more than another hundred meters above their heads before it passed the lower most bridge . . .

There was such a small likelihood that she would survive the fall, but Bane . . .

Suddenly, gunfire started to rain down on her from above, cutting into her thoughts. Incensed and cornered, she curled her lips back into a snarl as she glared up at Darrk's men from where they had taken up a point on the bridge above them. Instinctively, Talia shielded her head with her hand, and curved tighter into the outcroppings that hid her. Death only awaited them with Darrk's men . . . and that was an assured possibility. There were no numbers to consider there, no maybe or what if to weigh - for the human mind was easier to predict than nature and her ways. It was harder to know how much the human body could bend, how much it could bend before it was to break . . .

A bullet hit too close, and the rock next to her splintered, throwing shrapnel of stones at her eyes. She blinked, and steeled herself, her decision creeping upon her.

The possibilities of her survival were slim. But her friend . . . the venom had strengthened his bones, and turned to iron his skin. There was a chance that he could live, even greater than slim possibility that she could. For him, it was not the height of the fall that she was worried about, but rather how the water would effect his mask, already twisting uselessly from his face as his breath came in pained gasps, sickly and drawn deep from his throat.

And the sound tore at something deep inside of her – deeper than fear and logic and the instinct to preserve her own life. There was only _him_, and how he had given his all from the Pit until now. This was not a fight he could wage for her, but she could let him fall, and trust him to land safe, even where she would not . . .

In the end, it was an easy decision to make.

She shifted Bane's weight in her arms, and his head fell uselessly to rest against her shoulder. He moved as if he had no bones, and Talia felt her heart lurch sickly at the feeling of him as such in her arms.

"I could really use those wings right about now, my friend," Talia released the words from her tongue, hearing only them instead of the gunfire above her, the cascading water all around . . .

Over the lip of the walkway, the plummeting fall was all thunder and war, as if god himself held his hands over the earth and let water fall from between his palms to strike the earth below, fueled onward by the wind of his breath, the ferocity of his eyes. So Talia squared her shoulders, and looked up, and dared the water with its white hands to be the thing that would hold her down.

She dared it to keep her from rising.

And so, her decision made, she pulled Bane from their hiding place, counting between the rounds of the men up top and ignoring the calls that dared her to come any further than she already did.

Unflinchingly Talia stood, supporting Bane's weight with her own as the cascade thundered before them and the black clad men called . . .

And she stepped off of the ledge, not looking down at the water below, but rather the sky above, reigning mercilessly above them all . . .

Falling was a sick feeling, but she tried to ignore it the best she could as she held her body like a spear, trying to fall so that an injury would fall to her legs before her head, even though it mattered little either way . . . She held her arms around Bane, trying to keep him close, even though she knew that eventually the fall would make it impossible. Mere seconds passed, but they felt like minutes as the bridge above them became smaller and smaller, as the fierce fury of Darrk's men became nothing against the might of the thundering water and the cascading pressure of nature upon her shoulders . . .

A heartbeat passed, and Talia could have sworn that Bane's eyes flickered once, right before the angry water below swallowed them. She held her breath, the movement strangled on her lips with her fear and her resignation and she briefly had the sensation of strong arms holding her tight before the water slammed up to meet them, and then she knew no more.

.

.

She awakened to the feeling of strong arms pulling her from the current of the pool, curses in her ears and pain _everywhere_ as her body protested her and her treatment of it.

Her eyes rolled sickly as she comprehended a pain in her side, fierce and pounding. _Ribs_, her mind deducted for her. She tried to move, just slightly, and felt tears prick at her eyes, but they did not fall. Ah, they were only bruised then. She shifted again, and winced. Well, perhaps one was broken, she amended. But she could move her fingers and her toes, and while every muscle felt sore on her, and her mind swirled drunkenly, nothing felt permanently damaged. She was hurt nothing past what could be repaired.

_I am alive_, the thought swam through her head, muddy as a slow current in a dry stream. _I am alive, _her thoughts curled in surprise, even as the very real pain in her side said that yes, indeed, she was, and -

Bane.

The thought snapped her eyes open, and she rolled from where she had been left on the shore of the pool, blinking through groggy eyes, hoping to see her friend, and instead seeing -

"Ubu?" she questioned, surprise turning her syllables. Her voice was thin in her mouth, her chest aching with the effort to speak. The skin on her cheeks was bruised and tacky with blood, she realized when her mouth moved. Still she forced herself to ask, "What are you doing here?"

The assassin smiled grimly in greeting. "You foolish, foolish child," he breathed once he saw that her eyes were open, but there was relief in his censure as he berated her instead of answering her question outright. "What were you thinking, taking such a leap as that?"

She winced as she tried to move into a sitting position. "I was thinking that it was the quickest way down from the top."

Ubu snorted, even as he helped her sit up. He muttered a curse in a language that she did not recognize before she crinkled her nose and asked, "What are you doing here? It was not - "

" - it is my life's work and solemn vow to protect the name of al-Ghul," he interrupted stonily, his dark eyes fierce. "Even when that protection must come from themselves."

And Talia let her head fall forward, as much out of gratitude as it was out of weariness. "I am grateful that you came," she said. "If you had not . . ." she would have drowned in that cauldron, and Bane would have been picked off by Darrk's men one way or the other.

Bane.

She stiffened again, looking around, an unreasonable panic filling her chest before she found the figure of her friend laying right next to her, bruised and worse for the wear, but still breathing. _He still breathed_, and that was all that mattered . . . they just needed to get away, back to their safehaven in the mountains, where they could rest and recuperate and live to fight another day.

Ubu saw the cast of her gaze. "Here," he said, slinging one of Bane's useless arms around his shoulders, and heaving in order to stand with the masked man's weight braced with his own. "I have a jeep close by. Can you stand for that long? I can't carry you both, but I can come back for you."

Could she? Her body screamed in pain, but it was not a question of if it could. It would. It would listen and obey, and she would walk of her own volition until they were in danger no more.

She hissed, but got to her feet, ignoring her pain as she looked up at the setting sun above them, the scarlet rays drawing her eye and settling the blood in her veins.

She exhaled, letting her pain leave her body alongside her fear. Only determination was left.

"I can walk," she said.

Ubu nodded, "Then we must move quickly."

It was one of the longest hikes of Talia's life as she all but jogged to keep up with the assassin's near run, who did not falter with Bane's weight added to his own, but instead became stronger with his purpose and his goal. The drive in the jeep was even longer as they went quickly to outrun Darrk's men, and Talia felt every bump and hitch in the road acutely as her side screamed in protest and the ache at her temples turned as pointed as a blade through skin.

More than her pain was her worry, and the sight of her friend, his head lolling uselessly from side to side and his breath wheezing sickly through his broken mask . . . Ubu saw the direction her gaze had taken, but he did not comment on neither that or the possessive way she kept her hands clenched over the masked man's during their journey. He merely said that he had medical supplies on the plane, and Bane only had to survive that long . . .

So Talia bit her lip, and waited.

It felt like separating her hand from her fingers in order to leave Bane's side when they finally reached the Kleyate airport, but she did so long enough to help Ubu with readying for the flight and the checkout procedures. While Ubu busied himself with the take off, Talia stayed in the cargo hold with Bane, her fingers shaking as she did the morphine drip and the IV line easily enough, the basic field medicine that all in the League learned paying off in a grand way as she settled her friend in and saw that he was comfortable. From her rudimentary check, nothing appeared to be seriously damaged from the fall, but what she was more worried about was internal, and for that she could do nothing until they made it home . . .

When her work was done, she hesitated with her hands poised over Bane's mask. The tubes over his mouth and nose were warped and bent, bloated and misaligned from their attachments. This mask would be beyond repair, and the power of the drug in his system had even worn the paint away in some places, she noticed with a grimace.

He would be more comfortable without the mask, she reasoned as her fingers moved. It was just a dead weight on his face now, doing nothing where the morphine in his veins would be doing all to keep his pain at bay. It was not a violation of his privacy but rather a mercy, something a friend would do for a friend, she reasoned as she loosened the stays on his face, and gently pulled . . .

There was no time for her to stare, no time for her to map out scars and ruined things as Bane's eyes fluttered, trying to open sluggishly. And she realized with a start that where the drip was doing its duty in numbing the pain, and as pain receded consciousness came, and with it alarming changes. His eyes were glazed and unfocused, and his eyelashes fluttered, as if the weight of staying open was too much to bear. His head rolled on his neck, as if his spine was not strong enough to hold the weight of him. Talia ignored the pain in her ribs and the pounding at her temples – all which were superseded by the cold flame at the core of her, burning like a small sun as she leaned over him, trying to catch awareness in his eyes as she smiled weakly, hoping to pass her strength on to him – he, who was normally so strong – through her touch and her will alone.

It was a long flight back to the mountains, and yet she did not leave Bane's side to see to herself. Instead she tried to make Bane as comfortable as she could during the time she had. She wiped his forehead for him when his cold sweats came, and she talked to him the entire time, mumbled nonsense about anything and everything that she had no idea if he even heard as he swam in an out of delirium.

When they finally landed in Kathmandu, there was a medical team there to meet them – Cain included in their ranks, and Talia was shooed aside as the healers started on their work during the return trip up the mountain.

Along with the healers, Ra's was there to meet them, as Talia would have expected.

He delivered a withering look at Ubu, which the assassin returned with a deep bow and a respectful tilt of his head. But he did not apologize, and Ra's did not favor him with another look as Talia came up behind him, exhausted and cradling her bad hand about her aching side. Her hair had dried in thick ropes in front of her face, and her armor was caked with mire and the scent of dried riverwater.

"You deliberately disobeyed me," Ra's started before giving any other greeting, his voice striking, allowing no room for her to argue.

And still, her eyes flashed. "_I _disobeyed," Talia did not disagree with his words. "I disobeyed you, without any coercion and aid, against Bane's wishes as well." Immediately she threw that thought out into the open, determining to take her father's wrath upon her shoulders – upon her shoulders and her alone.

"He should have returned the moment he knew you had stowed away," Ra's countered, for he did believe that much possible of her. He didn't bother to argue that.

"To do so would jeopardize the mission," Talia returned calmly, "We were halfway across Afghanistan when I revealed myself, and he knew as well as I that the situation with Darrk required speed and a decisive response." _I would have found my way regardless _went unspoken between them as she tilted her chin up and challenged with everything in her.

And Ra's narrowed his eyes. He met her, matched her even, and so Talia looked up with the mountain in her spine and the sky above in her eyes and dared him to condemn the course she had chosen.

Finally, Ra's stepped back, a sigh released from his mouth, drawn from the deep parts of him. "You are too attached," he hissed, speaking under his breath but knowing she would hear him nonetheless. "You care too much, and it clouds your judgement."

Talia did not budge. Her nails bit into the fabric of her tunic from where she had crossed her arms. "He is my friend," she countered. "I owe him my life."

"Just a friend?" Ra's snort was derisive, filled with ire. "Any debt you owed him has long since been repaid, and it is foolishness to carry on this way for any longer. To do so would be detrimental to you, and, eventually, to him."

He met her gaze, icy eyes striking as if they were flung stones. Talia held his stare, knowing that her eyes were she same color, the same shape, and when she wished too they could hold the same weight. He was not immovable before her.

"I believe that I have broken a rib," she finally said as stiffly as she could, no inflection in her voice for the better or the worse. "So I would ride back with the medics, if you have no further need of me."

Still holding her gaze, Ra's stepped aside. "You are free to go."

Without altering her course, she continued to walk straight on, refusing to let her father see how his words had affected her.

"But it would be best of you to consider my words," even still, Ra's' voice rang out after her, "and consider where your loyalties lie."

.

.

After returning to the monastery, she had to wait the better part of two hours before Cain had finished enough with Bane in order to tend to her. While there were other healers who could have looked her over, she disliked allowing anyone that close to her unless she absolutely had to. And Cain she trusted more than most for his diligence in his care of Bane throughout the years, even if that diligence had nothing to do with Hippocratic empathy and everything to do with the fleshly part of sciences – the knowledge of the human body and its flaws and strong points.

In the end, Cain informed her that only one of her ribs was broken, but three more of them were bruised. The faint pain she had had when she moved her wrist revealed that it was sprained, a pain that had only became apparent to her once the adrenaline of the day and its events, and her fierce emotions that had flared as a result, had faded away. Her ribs she could do nothing but for to ice the bruised flesh and give it time. Pain suppressors were rarely given in the League, unless it was of the utmost importance to the body's recovery, and so Talia breathed in with her discomfort and breathed out, trying to inhale deeply enough to make sure her lungs and the tissue therein was not strained by the weakening of her rib cage. Cain wished for her to stay in the healer's wing of the monastery overnight to watch for concussed symptoms, and so Talia stayed on her thin pallet until the night fell beyond the high windows, fiddling with the bandages on her wrist and feeling where her face felt too thick, the skin on her cheeks broken and bruised from her collision with the water.

Time passed, but still she could not sleep, even with every part of her body was screaming for rest. She closed her eyes, but all she saw was the white static of the water falling around her. She still felt the unimaginable weight of it upon her shoulders, forcing her down where she tried to breathe past the weight on her chest and the foam filling her nose and her lungs . . . and then she remembered strong arms holding her close, protecting her through instinct alone when his own pain was overwhelming and the roar of the cascade was like the heart of a storm all around them, and -

Talia could no longer sit still. She needed to move.

She rose from her bed, looking around to make sure that the healers had all retired for the night. This part of the wing was reserved for Ra's and those closest to him, and the rooms here were private where the general men of the League would have been treated in the open parts of the wing, where the beds were lined up in groups and neat rows, one man being treated right along side the other. She was thankful for that privacy as she rose, tightening the sash around her sleeping tunic, and picking at her leggings almost self consciously as she bit her lip and slipped into the hall beyond.

The first corridor was empty, and the candles in their holders had been extinguished for the night. It was dark around them, but the ins and outs of the monastery were those she knew as well as she knew the bones in her hand, and she picked easily through the dark ways, stepping around the creaking places in the floorboards and those thin, as silent as a shadow flickering on the wall.

And, as she walked, she was not alone in her thoughts. Her father's words from earlier haunted her as if they were spoken into her ear, as if Ra's even now stood by her side.

_Just a friend,_ Ra's voice whispered through her head as she turned a corner slowly, peering for others and making sure that she was indeed alone.

_Just a friend._

And at the echo of his voice, she held her wrist around her bruised ribs, as if to protect them, the cold flame at the core of her flickering, banking on the odd sort of warmth she could feel fill her bones, stronger than her pain and her discomfort and her prior inability to _understand_. . .

_You must consider where your loyalties lie, _Ra's had said.

She breathed in deep, and felt her chest ache with the movement, her bruised ribs protesting the movement. She exhaled.

_Just a friend . . . _

There had been so much derision her father's voice when he had said as such, as if he had come to an understanding on a truth that Talia had long since found beyond her grasp. She bit her lip, and she remembered how the water had thundered around them and as strong arms held her close and every thought in her mind determined and defiant and _I can't let him die._

She couldn't.

_Just a friend,_ Ra's sneered in her mind, ever on the wings of her thoughts. _Just a friend_ . . .

Or more than that?

It was the ultimate question in her mind, one that had the cold flame inside of her banking, flickering as if in question.

Carefully, she considered her father's words, holding them up before the light as if to examine them and lend their weight for the better or the worse in her hands. She did care for him, the understanding swirled in her mind, like a wave before it broke upon the shore. She cared for him very much, that, at any rate, had never been a secret to anyone to anyone who knew them or know of them. Theirs was a relationship of the closest knit, and she had always loved him, as her friend, as her benefactor and confident and closest companion . . . and her savior.

But did she care about him in the way her father had implied? Did she care for him as a woman cared for a man?

At merely the question, she felt a warm flare of feeling, deep inside of her. It was stronger than the pain in her ribs, stronger than the cold flame at the core of her . . . It was warm and effervescent as she thought about the months of awkwardness and hurt feelings between them. She thought of the wrongness of Asad's touch, and how sick she had felt after that deed . . . and then she thought about the fascination she had felt in Kabul, when the urchin had started this long train of events . . . She remembered the disquiet in Bane's eyes, and his distancing himself from her just after, as if she were something to guard against, as if she were something that would burn him.

At the thought, her jaw squared, as if accepting a challenge. She thought about a lover's bond, the type of closeness that had prompted Melisande to commit herself to the Pits so long ago . . . she thought about the severance of such a bond, how such a thing had been the catalyst to turn Henri Ducard, a hard and righteous man, to Ra's al-Ghul, the demon's head himself, as cold as the mountain upon which they now stood and just as indomitable. She thought about herself, were she ever to lose Bane, and she felt . . .

She couldn't breathe for a moment. It was the night before all over again, when terror had cloaked her bones and she had pleaded for Bane not to go. A part of her would die if he were to pass from her side, and she knew that the severance would be one she would not be able to bear. They were entwined in fate's web, he or she, for better or for worse, and -

. . . would she ever be able to know that closeness with anyone else? The League of Shadows was not a place where one considered families and their bonds. They did not think of spouses or children, only how justice could be served through the Demonhead's commands, and one would not weave a family into that tapestry when one was prepared to die at any moment. Talia had never expected to be a wife, to be a mother . . . but she had an empty space inside of her that latched on and latched on hard to the kindred soul underneath Bane's skin. He had been the one who had thrived in the darkness with her, and . . . she could not imagine sharing that bond with anyone else. Even if Bane would not return her affections as she now understood she felt them, she would never be able to share that closeness with any other . . . She never wished to, she realized next, the truth in her heart a staggering thing that built in her throat and expanded . . .

She exhaled.

Her feelings were a warm tempest in the cauldron of her soul at that moment. She felt light, weightless almost, as if her contentment and her peace should have been something that spilled through her skin and shone through her pores. She felt powerful in that moment, content in her skin and sure of her stride as she selected her course and committed herself to walking upon it. Her voice hummed in her throat, as if she wished to scream and laugh out her understanding, even as she picked her way to Bane's empty portion to the wing in silence, only the shadows shifting in response to her step, as if to welcome her presence, as if to bow of one of their own, from their own . . .

Bane was sleeping when she finally slipped through the doorway of his room. It was such an oddity for her to see that she stopped and stood at the foot of his bed for a moment before proceeding. Even though she had shared his side many a time at night, he had always seemed to sense when she was awake, for his eyes seemed to open and awareness creep upon him whenever she was near. It was hard for her to remember a moment where he had truly slept and she watched and guarded, and so she stopped trying to search for an old memory in favor of carving one new. She paused to watch him for a moment, feeling her heart settle at the strong rise and fall of his, taking in the soft line of his brows, relaxed as they were, and the smooth shape of his forehead, the round curve of his cheek as it met his mouth . . .

And that was when she realized that he did not wear his mask.

Talia held her breath inside her mouth as she crept closer, her eyes flickering to the IV drip that kept him sedated and numb before softening in understanding. Her steps were cautious as she came near, as if she were a pilgrim at Mecca's shrine, near certain that her touch would stain something so holy . . . even when that something had hands stained as red as hers, with a face ravaged by the black parts of humanity and its deeds . . . She had not seen his face in years, not since that day she had risen with him from the Pit and the days thereafter when his mask was just being constructed for the first. She had thought that she had memory enough to recall since then, but this . . .

There had been no time to study his face when he had been unmasked on the plane before her, no time to observe and reflect during the journey back to the mountains. How could she of, with the pain in her side and the adrenaline thick in her veins and her mind swimming with black thoughts and black outcomes? It had been all she could think of, and only hours later, Talia looked back on herself before this day and wondered how she had been that same girl, with such a surety in her step, and a purpose in her mind now . . .

Biting her lip, she reached out to touch, to trace with her fingers what she saw with her eyes, but she found that she could not make her fingers connect with his skin, as if any whisper of a touch would have been a grievous theft without his eyes open and aware upon hers. Instead her touch ghosted in the breath of space above his mouth, over the scars that made up his chin and what remained of his nose . . . She sickened to see how torn the cartilage of his face was, how his nose simply did not exist in some places, and how the bone of his chin was peeking through the layers of skin and scar tissue, tiny blue veins pulsing through the surface of the entire catastrophe like a road map, saying _this was where he had been struck, this was how he had suffered_. The skin was still red and raw, the wounds still tender as if they had been inflicted days ago rather than years, and she felt such an ache in her heart, such a sick sort of regret at the sight of them that she felt her eyes burn as tears built in their dry ducts, summoned from the sudden surge of emotion she felt, deep inside of her . . .

"I am sorry, my friend," she finally whispered the words she had held inside of her for so many years. Her fingers rested in the air above the mangled shape of his lips, wanting to touch, but unsure of her right. "This is all my fault," the words continued to pour from her, unable to cease once she had finally forced them from thought to sound. "And if it were not for me . . ."

_He would never be here_, she thought numbly. He would still have a face, his eyes would not have changed color, his body would not have warped so to bear the weight of his wounds . . . He would still be safe and sound and . . .

Trapped, she finally conceded.

He would still be a man of the Pit, lost to the horror of the sands and the greater enemy _time _that reigned cruelly above them all. He would not have risen, had he not born through hell as he did. He would not have felt snow against his skin, or breathed in tropical air once again. He would have known nothing but for the Pit and its horrors until he succumbed to the weakness of his own body or the constant power struggle of the other prisoners. Her mind struggled with the cost of his freedom and the price he had paid. And all for her . . .

She bowed her head, resting her chin against her chest and closing her eyes. She felt heavy in that moment, her new found feelings – the strength of her regard and her understanding of it - making the knowledge of his pain strike twice as fierce as her own . . . She shared his pain now, even more than she had then, and she could not . . .

She sat down carefully next to him, trying to not let her additional weight disturb his rest as she let her hand fall away from his face, such a weariness in her bones as he . . .

. . . as he gently reached out to cover her hand with his own, catching her. When she lifted her head, his eyes were open and aware upon hers, glinting oddly in the darkness around them. His grip on her wrist was soft, but tension curved in the shape of his fingers. She could feel its beat in his pulse.

"How can you look upon me with such a softness in your eyes?" he finally asked. His words were whispered, drawn from the back of his throat, and at the sound of them, Talia tilted her head, just slightly, as if to hear him better. His voice was deeper, rougher than it had been all of those years ago in the Pit, but it was not the breathy baritone that the mask provided to the world. This was different, and yet . . . the same. It was still him, still _Bane_, still . . .

"These scars were inflicted in my name," Talia felt the words falling from her mouth before fully comprehending them in her mind. "They were borne in my honor, for my freedom. You paid a ransom that should never have been yours to pay, and in doing so you branded yourself as mine and mine alone. How can I ever look upon you and know horror?"

She could actually see the line of his mouth at it turned up at the corner, just barely, and her eyes drank in hungrily of the sight, finally able to see all of him before her. Just as quickly, his mouth settled into a grim line, and Talia felt her skin itch at the emotion as it was tucked from her. She felt slighted, though she knew not why, and she fisted her hand as if to resist the urge to reach out and touch him, to find with her fingers what she could not discern with her eyes.

"Talia," he finally sighed, releasing her wrist, even though her hand lingered, just a hairbreadth away from skin. "What are you doing here?"

"I wanted to make sure that you were okay," she said, a vast understatement for the turmoil in her soul, but the statement accurate enough. "I worried for you."

"You need not," Bane said dismissively. "I have borne worse than this."

_For me_, Talia felt with a pang, but tried to school her expression so that she showed naught of her thoughts on her face. Instead she turned again to drink in the shape of his scars with her eyes. "And these, do they pain you? I know the drip is not as effective as the venom of your mask, but I do not know . . . " she curbed her words, at a loss for how to proceed.

"They are merely numb right now," Bane finally said gently. "They ache like an echo . . . a memory of pain."

Her fingers itched, wishing so badly to touch, as she carefully kept her hands by her sides. Her knuckles were white, her mouth tight lipped.

"I hate that they had to cause you any pain. What you went through today . . . you should not have. It never should have happened," she finally said, her voice low in her throat, thick with emotion. "And I . . . I hate that my father projects his own failings on to you. It is not fair, and now it has caused you pain."

Bane sighed, the sound a low rumble in his throat, odd when not being hissed out through the confines of his mask. "He is being a father in the only way he knows how, little one. If anything else, do not begrudge him for that."

She snorted. "You are too generous, my friend."

"He is simply trying to protect you," Bane said, his words oddly disapproving, and Talia narrowed her eyes at him. "When he cannot act with his words he will respond quickly and decisively where laxed actions have cost him dearly before."

"Protection . . . from you?" she snorted. "What protection would I need?"

"More than you think," Bane said, his words quick and sure, and oddly . . . disparaging. There was disapproval in his voice, anger even, but not for her. And if not for her . . .

For him.

Understanding lit, slow and steady in her as the cold flame inside of her pulsed with a white light. Her father was not the only man in her life who sought to shield her from what they did not deem her ready for, and at the knowledge, she felt her mouth set. Her eyes narrowed. Her heart beat quick and evenly as it did before a fight, when she was ready to take up arms, and she took the challenge in stride and thought only _let it come_.

Slowly, so slowly, she reached out to gently touch the side of his face, right where the ruined skin of his cheek met that unblemished. Her fingers rested on the familiar thin scars on his jawbone, while her thumbs just barely lingered on where the mask normally covered, on that which was foreign from her view . . .

She was sitting next to him on the hospital bed, her body an arch before him as she leaned down, slowly, so slowly, a foreign fear and nervousness tangling with her determination and her curiosity, in order to press her lips to his mangled mouth. The kiss was soft, chaste, a bare meeting of lips that nonetheless sent a shiver running up and down her spine as she dared to press a little harder, move a little closer, mindful of his bewildered gaze and hesitant to cause him pain, but drunk nearly on the sensation as she moved her lips against his in one soft kiss after another. He did not kiss her back, not right away, and Talia felt nervousness part from her as she pressed her lips harder to his, almost desperate for a response. Somehow she had gone from sitting demurely at his side to slip gently over his body, her small form not even a shadow to the massive bulk of his as she straddled his waist.

He only moved to stop her when she slid her mouth from his, to kiss the scar that stretched from the corner of his mouth to where the mask tucked underneath his chin. He pushed her away then, a strangled sound in his throat that sounded like an animal awaiting a blow, and she fought the urge to flinch.

"Please, stop," he said hoarsely, holding her wrists to prevent her touch, turning his face from hers when she tried to return to him again. She flexed against his hold, but it was absolute. He was unyeilding. They were at an impasse, he holding her wrists, and she straddling his chest, as if the slightness of her weight and the determination in her muscles could keep her by his side. They glared at each other, each one holding their own.

"I will not leave until we discuss this," she finally said. "You will have to throw me from this room."

He glared at her, but she just settled her weight more firmly on top of him, daring him with her eyes.

"You are so young," he leveled first at her, an obvious starting blow, but one that struck more at him than it did at her. For she saw no reason to worry on that regard where he saw every, and she tried to consider for a moment that this was even harder on him than it was on her – making the move from protector to lover. A part of her advised patience, and time . . .

But another part of her knew that she had what she wanted right before her grasp. And she refused to cower before what the rest of humanity said should not be. She lived beyond their rules, beyond their judgment, and she fretted not at it. "I am nearly twenty years of age - I am not a child," she simply said, her voice even, her words bold. "I am almost the same age as my mother was when she descended into the Pit – married for nearly a year, and with child, at that. And, if I recall correctly, I am the same age as _you_ were when you decided to take me under your wing . . . My age matters not except for how it would trouble you, and _you _alone."

"I had more years to my name than you do now," he said disapprovingly, his brows knitting as if to glare at her. "And even if that was not the case, it would not be as simple as you say."

And she set her jaw, and tried to remind herself that he was used to living in pain. He was used to denying himself. It had always been she who was the selfish one between them, wishing for escape and freedom and the stretching of her wings. He could go on the rest of their lives as they were now. And she . . .

. . . she could not.

"What am I to you then?" she finally questioned, her tone unkind. "Am I simply a responsibility, a burden to you? If you had not one scar on your face, would you still be here, side by side with me? Am I just that child in your shadow still, a novelty to pass your time? Am I as much a wall to you now as the Pit was then?"

He did not shrink from her words. If anything he sat up straighter, such a feeling flaring in his eyes then that she didn't know quite how to translate for all of the power it held. When he spoke, she knew her words had struck their target as he said, "You have always been more than that to me." His voice was low, dangerous, steeped in such a feeling where normally he was so level, so calm and collected. She smiled in satisfaction as a chip in his armor broke in order to release a floodgate.

And so she leaned over him, close enough so that she shared his breath. She could feel his chest rise and fall from underneath her; she could feel his pulse beat quick and angry from where he still held her wrists. "Then tell me," she whispered fiercely, she _dared_.

And he met her challenge. "You were never a burden, then or now. Nor have I ever felt _responsibility_ for your soul in any way that was not rooted in my regard for you. You have always been innocence to me, _hope_, even now where you have seen and dipped your hands in the darkest parts of the world . . . The scars on my face do not bind me to you," he all but spat the words, his mangled lips slurring the syllables in odd places, flinging them into her ears. "Instead they are an outward embodiment of that which I feel within. They are a physical manifestation of what truly lies beneath my skin . . . I was not a liar when I said that I deserved the Pit for my crimes. You were redemption, in a way, and to sully you with what I feel now . . ."

"What _we_ feel," Talia interrupted, her words fierce, her syllables forceful. "I came to this conclusion on my own, without any encouragement from you." At that she laughed bitterly, her eyes narrowing. "No encouragement whatsoever."

"And is encouragement what you truly want?" he finally asked. "You have a beast beneath you in thrall, and you would glory in that attachment even as it tore you apart. And you are so young to so willingly bind yourself in such a way. That is the real reason I took your father's task of ending Darrk. Not only would I be pulling a truly lethal thorn from your side, but I would be saving you from a much larger threat in my demise . . . I would be saving you from _me_."

At his words, she felt something low and pained in her side. It hurt to breathe in that moment, the knowledge of how deeply he felt and how far he would go for that feeling. How could she make him see that that very worry, that very self sacrificing spirit was the very thing that she so adored? It was the thing that kept her grounded, that gave her hope that the world was not as black as her own experiences had shown her to be. "You are not the beast in this relationship," she finally said brokenly, any anger breaking from her tone for something softer instead, something deeper. "No matter what face I wear, it is a mask, the same as yours. I thought that you, of all people, would know that."

"You are a product of your environment," Bane said, his voice softening around the edges, turning from wound to balm as hers had. "Your life has made you, and you have risen underneath every force that has tried to hold you down."

And Talia smiled, finally the motion loosing some of its darkness for a real fondness to shine through – an affection that she could not wholly put into words, even though she tried. "Baldassare . . . so have you. Do you not see that we are not very different from each other?"

She paused, letting her words sink in as his eyes bored into hers. He did not breathe for a moment, and she knew that he desperately wanted her to prove him wrong. No matter how strongly he felt, every man had a breaking point – that, more than anything else, the League had shown her in spades, and she would push until he could fight no more. But she knew, she _knew_, that they would both be the better for it in the end.

So she continued. "When we returned, my father ordered me to figure out my feelings for you, and to pick a side . . . What he did not know is that I felt such a fear when you went up against Darrk on your own. Such a fear . . . and such a pain. I knew that I would have died had you fallen in your task, and I . . . I am not strong enough to deal with that. I would not have been, no matter what else I have faced and overcame." The words should have felt like a weakness to her, a flaw to admit and lay bare. Instead they felt like a strength as they left her tongue. They felt like a truth, fortifying her and steeling her bones. "You are, you are . . ." and she faltered, trying to put just how fiercely she was feeling into words. "You are like the sky to me," she finally settled on, her smile stretching and growing at the words, at how _right_ they felt as they poured from her mouth. "You are the sky to me, a wall which I do not wish to climb, but rather a shadow thrown . . . You are a strength to me. You are hope," she finished simply, using his words as his own.

Somewhere during her speech, his hold on her wrists had lessened. Her perch above him had lost its violence. Instead she leaned against him as if counting on him to hold her up. Her hands fell to rest on his chest while his thumbs rubbed absent circles into the skin of her wrists.

"And if you . . . if you do not feel for me as I do for you," she breathed past the heavy feeling the words produced in her, thick in her throat, "I understand. I understand, and I will never ask anything more of you than you can give. But if you do . . ."

Her words faltered, unable was she to voice exactly what she wanted to. What did she want from him? She finally considered. She tried to think of their relationship in words the world used – a paramour, a lover, a spouse someday? She finally decided that there was no word that accurately summed up what she was to him and he to her. She wanted everything . . . _everything_ he could possibly give. She was greedy with the thought of it, like one of the great wyrms of old as they sat atop their horde and coveted the gleam of gold and precious stones beneath them.

"I care for you more than words can express," Bane finally said softly. "But, I think that that is something you already know." _I love you_, she read in his eyes. But he would not say it aloud when this was still so new, when this was still so fragile and tender between them . . . but it didn't matter, for in the bones of her bones and in the heart of her heart she knew.

She _knew_.

And finally, her battle won, and her victory assured, Talia felt all of her strength and determination flicker into something softer . . . something almost timid as she raised her hands in order to softly touch the soft skin of his cheeks again.

Her touch was soft, her caress light, but he still seemed to shift from her, as if uncomfortable.

"Does this pain you?" she finally asked, her worry a tremor in her voice.

And Bane hesitated. "It is of no consequence."

With a sad smile, she leaned closer to him, something soft within her when she reflected that his face had known only a healer's touch over the years . . . and before that the skin had only known violence and pain inflicted. "My hands hold no pain," she finally whispered. "Not for you."

"On the contrary," he whispered. "They have the potential to be destruction themselves." And, for once, he did not mean the ferocity she could unleash on others, but rather the fact that he would make the earth spin on its axis for her. He was completely in thrall to her, and the responsibility of that gift was a sobering thing to her, an intoxicating thing to her. It was something she prayed that she would never abuse.

And so she gave in to the temptation to touch the ruined skin of his face, finding the upraised sensation of scars underneath the pads of her fingers. He shivered, a tremor that racked his body as she mapped out the places where he had suffered, the places that had been torn apart in her name. A horror, he had called them often. Something abominable, unworthy of sight or touch . . . but she had meant what she said earlier. The scars were for her and by her, as if he had been branded for her and her alone. And it was her horror that she now searched out and learned for the first as she leaned down to follow the path her fingers had taken with her mouth.

Desire was new in its intensity, but it was strangely soft in that moment, a low burning thing as she dragged her mouth from the smooth skin of his jaw bone to the mangled flesh of his skin. She paused to taste the bit of bone that was still exposed there, an intimacy that no other couple in the world could claim, a hum in the back of her mouth at the taste of him as he reached up a hand to fist in the thick fall of her hair, falling over her shoulders to curtain them both.

She drew back enough to look in his eyes then, finding them dark with an emotion that she could not name for how soft it was. She smiled, the expression dear, and his hands fell from her hair to fall on her face, returning her searching caresses as he mapped out the planes of her face with his hands, pausing to sweep fondly across her closed eyes, and linger on the curve of her upper lip, the full swell of her lower lip. She breathed, and could taste his skin. Her heart felt quick in her chest, beating as it did only before a fight, even where the rest of her was strangely languid, strangely sedate, willing to follow and be led as he finally leaned forward enough to kiss her.

It was an unused to experience for her. While she had practiced seducing a man in word and gaze, she had never allowed any to touch her person more than was strictly necessary. Now his lips moved slowly across hers, coaxing, teaching, and she mimicked his actions the best she could, moving to rest her hands on the broad slope of his shoulders. There was a warmth in her belly then, steadily growing as he kissed her, and she pressed closer to him, seeking out more of that sensation. The entire exchange was gentle and soft, but she felt the warmth within her stoke to a fire when his tongue gently parted the seam of her lips in order to taste inside. She could not contain the moan low in her throat as he tasted her, only knowing that she _ached_ in that moment, and longed for more. So much more . . .

At her reaction, his hands curved to grasp even more tightly about her hips, the very motion possessive as his fingers sank into her skin as if to brand and mark her as he already had been marked for her. There was something darker about the moment as his large hands rose from where they had been resting on her hips in order to caress her sides, tracing from the swell of her hips to the underside of her breasts and then down and up again. Her ribs twinged slightly in protest at the contact, but it was worth it for the delicious flare of feeling that followed, the warmth that pooled in her chest and the tingles that ran up and down her spine at the foreign sensations, intoxicating as she gave in to them.

She had no idea how long they carried on like that, but when their touches ebbed to gentle caresses, she leaning her forehead against his and shared his breath while his hand still traced out absent patterns on her spine. She realized then just how completely she was exhausted after the physical and emotional events of the day. But it was a good weariness that clung to her bones, a contentedness that had her all but purring as she rested boneless against him. Her ribs hurt in their cage, and her wrist was sore from where she had placed too much of her weight on it, but it didn't matter. Not here, not now.

"I am sorry, but does this pain you?" she finally asked drowsily when she realized that she was still completely sprawled atop of him. She hadn't been the only one to ache that day, she knew, and she wanted to make sure . . .

"No," he said gently, though she doubted he would ever tell her otherwise. But his breathing was heavy, and not just from from her touch. She knew that the morphine was a poor substitute for the compound of gas in his mask, but it was enough, for now.

She shifted slightly, sliding off of him in order to curve into his side, utterly content in that moment as her eyes flickered sleepily.

"Rest," Bane said simply, ending her inner debate of whether or not she should stay by his side that night, and she raised her head just slightly to make sure he was sure when he simply said, "I'll be here when you wake up." And the words, so common and every day sounded like a vow to her ears. She caught them, and held them close.

She curved into his side, her head resting on his chest to feel his heartbeat against her ear as one strong arm wrapped against her shoulders and held her close. She felt content in that moment, content as she had not felt in months, and sleep pulled at her eyes with its siren song as she fought its call as long as she could.

"Goodnight, Baldassare," she whispered, her mouth moving against his chest as she spoke, her skin humming pleasantly as it molded against and found warmth in its mate.

And a moment passed, a dozen heartbeats. And finally, "Goodnight, my dear," he whispered, and her smile curved against his skin.

Softly, she closed her eyes and let sleep take her until the morning.

* * *

**Parting Notes:**

**Doctor Darrk**: Is the villain from the comics who did kidnap Talia as a ploy against Ra's. Her rescue facilitated Bruce"s and Talia's meeting and subsequent romance, and he was much as I described him here. I had fun taking that villain and situation to fit a Bane/Talia standpoint.

**Lady Shiva/Doctor Cain**: These were Cassandra Cain's parents, one of the amazing young woman to take up the mantle of Batgirl. They have a long and turbulent backstory with the League, and it was fun to allude to that here.

**Darrk's Base**: Was inspired by the Baatara Gorge waterfall in Lebanon - of the the many natural wonders of that country which I did not know about until writing this story. The funny thing was, that while plotting this, I was looking up unusual locations and already had this on my list. And then, during a trip to one of my favorite Lebanese restaurants, I noticed a picture of the Gorge on the wall where I had not before, and our waiter - who was originally from Damascus - was able to give me a first hand account of the fall. So, that's my fun story of the day.

**How Far A You Can Fall Into Water**: Yes . . . I looked this up. Apparently, anything more than 67 meters/220 feet is pretty much a no live situation. Even falling into water from a height of 67 meters, you'd be hitting the water at 80 mph - the biggest thing to worry then wouldn't be the fall killing you, but the broken bones/unconsciousness/concussion that would keep you from swimming to safety. Here I had their jump 'very nearly a hundred meters in the air' just for more interesting reading, and to better suit the picture of the Gorge I had built up in my mind. But kids, don't try this at home.

**My Version of Ra's' Immortality**: While I love the comic!canon immortal Ra's, the Nolan films obviously weren't following this line, so I made it so that there is always a Ra's al-Ghul, just a different man taking on the mantle at different places in time.

So, that said, I bid you all farewell until the next time! I hope to have an update out much sooner than this one, but hopefully I gave you enough to chew on here to last for a while. ;)


	5. a double edged sword

** Author's Note: **What's this? An update? An update less than a month after the last update, at that?! I know, where is the real Mira, and who is this imposter who wrote this chapter in her stead? ;)

BUT I am never one to look a gift horse in the mouth, and when inspiration struck, I kicked this puppy out in record time. I hope that the mush here (well, mush for these two), lives up to your expectations. You guys deserve it after being such awesome readers! Thank-you, again, for all of your overwhelming praise and support. Your response has overwhelmed all of my hopes for this fic, and I thank you for that, from the bottom of my heart.

Now, on to the story . . .

* * *

**Part V. "a double edged sword"**

Talia awakened before the dawn with a warm weight in her chest.

Or rather, _on_ her chest, seeing as how she had become deliciously entwined with her masked friend somewhere during the night. Exhausted after their interlude, she had fallen into a dreamless sleep with no registry of her movements beyond her slumber. She was still pressed against Bane's side, her right arm flopped rather possessively over his chest, and one of her legs entwined rather with his own. He still had one arm underneath her body, holding her close, serving as her pillow more than anything else. His other hand had come over to rest on the indentation of her waist, careful of her bruised ribs even in his sleep. She winced when she thought of how the arm she was sleeping on must have lost all circulation, before biting her lip and doing her careful best to disentangle herself from their embrace without waking him.

When she finally slipped away, she had to fight to keep a smile from her face when his body moved as if to follow her. But the reflex stilled and he shifted slightly, his breath smoothing out once more as he entered into another stage of sleep. It was a testament to just how weary he was for him not to awaken at her moving, and her smile turned fond at the sight. The cold flame at the core of her was a warmth in that moment, as if butterflies had taken to scraping their wings against her stomach in tiny patterns. She felt giddy, silly even, as she stared down at her friend with her mouth turned up and her heart beating against her chest as if it was singing.

Before leaving, she gave over into the impulse to lean over to press her lips to his in parting. She felt a tightening in her chest then, a rise of feeling that had her veins pulsing and her cheeks flushing. Even her eyes were smiling as she next pressed her mouth to the scars threading from his mouth before drawing back from him.

Even then he did not stir, and like a shadow she made the journey back to her own room without incident. Her pallet was cold compared to the space she had just left, but it would make do for the time being. Sleepily, she curled into her pillow, her ribs at her side a dull pain, and fell back into a deep sleep again.

She was awakened long after the gong would have sounded the morning hour for the rest of the monastery. Cain was the one to rouse her, waiting with his thin expression and his cold fingers for her to come to awareness before telling her that he was starting his daily rounds, and he wished to start with her. The League had been blessed as of late, and past a minor sprain here and a common cold there, the infirmary was relatively empty of patients to attend to. But Cain had an early report to make to Ra's, and so she rubbed the sleep from her eyes and convinced her body that she needed to eat and report on the condition of her injuries as best she could. Her ribs ached more this day than they had the day prior, as was to be expected, but the pain was nothing she couldn't handle. It was a nuisance, but not a hindrance. She did not appear to be concussed, but Cain still asked that she stay under his observation for the rest of the day, to which she acquiesced, knowing that her body needed the time to heal.

She found questions about Bane budding on the tip of her tongue, but she was able to curb them, just barely. Cain answered solely to Ra's, and she did not need to add any fuel to her father's flame, especially . . .

. . . well, especially now.

She flickered in out of sleep for the rest of the morning, finally awakening after the noon hour had passed to find Ubu in her room with rice and a steaming cup of po cha for her. His presence was more welcome than Cain's, and she sat up and took his offerings gratefully. The assassin lingered with her after she had finished her lunch, and brought out his wooden chess set to help her pass the time. She spent the next hour cheating him from a fair portion of his purse, taking no survivors until Ubu playfully protested, saying that he should of had the advantage with her being the infirm one between the two of them.

"Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak," Talia quoted cheerfully, to which Ubu rolled his eyes and said that he had lived through enough of her father quoting Sun Tzu at him to be quite weary of the great general's words.

At the mention of her father, Talia sobered, just slightly. Her mind was a weight upon her as things she had pushed aside returned to the center of her thoughts without her permission. In her distraction, Ubu took a rook from her without her noticing. She took a pawn of his for petty spite in retaliation, but the move was empty. Wasted.

Wisely, Ubu said nothing in response to her change in mood. Perhaps he even regretted speaking of her father in the first place. But the assassin didn't say one way or the other and Talia was left to sort through her thoughts in silence. The chief one amongst them being _what now? _She had voiced the feelings that had been building inside of her chest, and Bane had returned them. She would not give that up, she already knew – not for anyone or anything, her father included, and yet . . .

Worry was a new feeling for her to process. A sick feeling, sticking to the inside of her lungs and making it hard to breathe. She tried to let it go, knowing that the time for decisions would soon come. For now, she wanted only to think about the delicious flare of feeling inside of her, the warm memory she carried in her lips and fingertips of taste and touch and _knowing_.

It worked, for that moment at least, and behind the worry and the uncertainty of the future, Talia could decide that she was . . . she was _happy_. Happiness was an even more foreign emotion than worry for her. Always had she simply _survived_. She had carved out her way in the world and had made the best of the twists and turns of her life. She had been content. She had been determined, at peace, even, but truly _happy_ . . .

She breathed in deep with the emotion before letting it settle in her bones. The cold flame at the core of her turned warm with the feeling in her; it pulsed like a heartbeat.

And, for now, that was enough.

Not long after Ubu took his leave of her - saying something about how he would now have to challenge the Seven to poker in order to restore order to his finances - Talia found herself once again nodding off, her wrinkled copy of _The_ _Art of War _falling to rest on her chest, forgotten as she succumbed to sleep.

A part of her liked to think that her father came in to visit her during that time. She thought that she caught a glimpse of his face when her eyes flickered in and out of consciousness. She could see it plainly in her mind's eye, the tight frown of his mouth and the odd light in the cold cast of his eyes. She liked to think that he took her book from her and put it on her bedside stand when he left. She imagined that he smoothed her hair back from her eyes without her knowing, his touch lingering where he would never allow it to during her waking hours.

But when she awakened, Cain said that she had no visitors, and her copy of Sun Tzu's words was on the floor from where it had fallen from her in her sleep. She glared at the felled book crossly, and placed it on the table next to her with a satisfyingly dull thud. From the book's cover, the general's thin eyes were shaped as if to question her, and Talia made a childish face at it in response.

That night, she waited for the sun to set completely before attempting to steal away to see Bane again. But Cain stayed in the healer's wing late, and it seemed that every time she was ready to brave the halls to go to him, a new person was strolling down the corridor beyond. She narrowed her eyes, and wondered if her father had sent a guard to keep her to her place and he to his.

Did he suspect? She wondered then, instantly paranoid as uncertainty and doubt pricked at her mind with their insidious claws. Even the shadows had eyes, and each spoke into her father's ear in his own home, his own temple. But Ra's al-Ghul was a man, he was mortal – at least, the flesh and bone shell that bore the name was, and she did not have to put him up on the pedestal that every other in the monastery did.

Even so, she backed to her own pallet slowly, not wanting to stretch his suspicions (his now very real, very valid suspicions) that night. Instead, she flopped down miserably and settled herself in for a long night alone. She stayed awake most of the sleeping hours, staring at the wall closest to her, her thoughts chasing each other like currents at the bottom of a deep abyss, one about the other until she felt as if she was swimming on them.

The next morning, Cain declared her well enough to leave his care. He only advised caution when moving with her sore ribs, and after the routine spiel of how she was to come to him if anything else proved amiss, she was free to go.

It was noon by that time, so she picked up her usual lunch before joining the other shadows as they made their way down the glacier for the hamlet below. She strayed behind them as the others pushed on at a clipped pace, not wanting to keep up with the harsh demands of their jogging. Instead she walked slowly and enjoyed the mountain air as it filled her lungs. The thin oxygen and the snow all around her made the air smell sweet. It cleansed her, she liked to think. It made her eyes sharper, her thoughts clearer, and by the time she made it to Dohna's tiny shop, the elderly woman already had a container of sakarni ready to go for her – a monthly trip Talia was always sure to make for the treat.

"I expected you days ago," the woman said in greeting, her grey bangs pale against the olive complexion of her face.

Talia gestured to her ribs, knowing that the other would have already seen every wince and tender motion of her body no matter how well Talia had thought them hid. "I was detained," she said simply, knowing that those who lived in the hamlet, and benefited from the League's protection and patronage, knew not to ask questions.

"And more than that, I think," Dohna's old eyes turned playful, knowing and wise. "You have changed," she said simply. "Your energy moves more freely now, you have air in your lungs." And she spoke not of the breath in her chest, but rather of the spiritual energy that she believed resided there – the same as the Chinese believed in ch'i. Talia raised a brow at the woman, remembering the long hours they had spent speaking of the mystical things of the world, the paths and ways in the human body, the human mind.

Talia simply bowed her head to the elder, neither confirming or denying her suspicions before taking her package and making her way back up the mountain.

.

.

That evening, she knew her father was purposefully trying to detour her when the light in Cain's office stayed on well past when he would have stopped his work for the day. The healer's rooms were very close to Bane's, and Cain had the eyes of a hawk and the ears of an owl. There would be no way for her to sneak past his keep unnoticed.

But Talia was stubborn, and annoyed, at that. But it was the bright flare of feeling within her, more than anything else, that found her on a high point of the slopped roof, connecting a rappelling line to her belt and testing the line's connection to its support before turning and quite simply stepping into the night.

It was a short fall, and the line snapped silently before she swung gracefully in the air, counting out windows before finding the one she needed. And she angled her body like a arrow, and dove -

- to land quite simply on the windowsill, triumph swimming in her veins.

"There is a door," Bane said levelly when she lingered at her perch, not even blinking at her surprise intrusion. There was a smile quirking on the ruined line of his mouth, which she returned with one of her own.

"My father was being childish," Talia proclaimed simply, undoing the line from her belt and attaching it to the window where she could retrieve it later. She tossed her head imperiously at her words, her eyes narrowed in challenge as she thought of Ra's and his disapproval. "He made the first move, I merely responded in kind."

Bane shook his head and muttered under his breath - what distinctly sounded like a slur against her family's name, and their inherent stubbornness in particular. The mask never would have picked up on the words and transmitted them, and Talia tilted her head, amused as she wondered just how much of his commentary she had been denied in the past.

When she stepped into the room, she looked over at Bane, who was not in bed, but rather standing in the doorway that led to the room's small bathroom. He was wearing his customary grey cargo pants, his feet bare and the armored plates that normally accompanied them missing. His chest was bare as well, which her eyes flickered up and over appreciatively before looking upon his face. He did not wear his mask, she noticed, worried twinging inside of her when she thought of how long he had gone without completely numbing the pain of his face. Instead, he had a localized version of the venom in his mask fed to him through a tube in his arm, which was hooked up to a small tank of the gas he used whenever he went about his day to day routine without his mask. It wasn't as potent as the mask's brew, but it did it's work for the short amounts of time when he had to go without his face covered. She glanced at the bedside stand, and saw an empty syringe and a timer, and knew he had not gone the whole day without the mask - he must have just taken it off.

"I brought Sarakni," she announced, moving to take her pack from her back, which held the precious containers within. "You now have no excuse to turn down eating with me." Her mouth curved, amused as she remembered how many different dishes she had tried over the years to get Bane to take off his mask before her. It all seemed so long ago now . . .

When she looked up, Bane's mouth was quirked, but he was silent. She tilted her head, but did not ask him how he was feeling. She looked at him, and instantly she could see the tight corners to the way he was holding himself, the barest of hesitations in his stride. She knew that he was not well. Better, but mending. His breath was slightly uneven - no doubt from going without his mask for so long the day before and then again so soon - and at that she did frown. As she made her appraisal, he was looking her over in much the same way, his eyes pausing on her wrapped wrist before flickering over to where her broken rib would be, if he could see through flesh and bone to where she was pained underneath.

"I am healing quickly," she answered to his gaze when it lingered, as if angered that she had come to any harm – but that was an anger which would always turn back upon himself, and she had no wish for that. "But you?" she asked, drawing his attention in a plain diversion. "Cain brought you your mask?"

"Yes," he answered. "It was on for some time earlier, I merely had a personal matter or two to attend to that required its removal."

He made a gesture, and when she looked closer, she could see the faintest hint of a dark shadow creeping over the otherwise smooth expanse of his skull. She smiled at the realization, something as his hair trying to grow back meaning so to her now that he was sharing it with her.

"Do you want my help?" she asked, remembering the Pit a lifetime ago, when Bane would shave her head in the half light, the blade in his hand a cold weight against her skin as he told her stories to distract her – everything from Hamlet's great tragedy to Homer's epic adventure, then on to lighter tales like _Emma_, a regency comedy that she had always laughed heartily at, the social satire so far from her world of bars and stone . . . "You used to do this for me, back in the Pit," she said next, even though she knew that he was remembering the same as her. Her voice had turned soft in her mouth, fondness weighing the syllables where normally talk of the Pit was stilted, hard.

"I remember," Bane said softly. "I remember how you could not hold still. You fidgeted like a trapped bird, not once caring that I held a knife to your skin."

Talia made a face. "You took so long, and I was but a child. It was to be expected."

"Forgive me for not making speed a priority when I was worried for cutting your skin," Bane drawled, shaking his head as Talia remembered how carefully every cut and bruise had to be looked after in that time, infection something they could not fight with their lack of the basic necessities of life. How many men had been felled by such simple sicknesses in that time? Talia remembered not, and she set her jaw at the thought now.

"Unless you are worried about me cutting your skin, I do not know why you would not accept my help now," she took to teasing next. "Are you afraid, Baldassare?"

"On the contrary," he returned with a wispy sort of laugh, "I have every confidence in your ability to wield a blade."

She shook her head, but stepped forward, slipping past him into the small bathroom. Her eyes flickered back to the small timer Bane had set up, telling him how long he had been without the mask, even with the container of gas at his side. She set her jaw, and looked to Bane again, her smile welcoming. "Or I could leave now," she offered, trying to keep her voice level so that he would not read into any inflection. "I do not wish to make you uncomfortable."

"Never that," Bane said softly, stepping closer to her. Without the mask, he sounded more like the man she had known in the Pit so long ago. Even so, his mangled lips still slurred the words in familiar places, his mouth pausing oddly to shape their syllables, and in that way he was still familiar, still _Bane_.

And Talia smiled, her expression soft as he moved past her in order to hand the razor to her. He sat down on the small stool while Talia moved to the wash basin in order to work up a lather with the soap. She worked in silence as Bane settled, watching her with a challenge in his eyes as she turned to stand right before him. Even seated he nearly looked eye to eye with her, such was his height compared to hers, and she caught his gaze, holding it.

"Last chance," she warned, leaning towards him.

"Do your worst," he said simply, and his eyes fell from her.

She inhaled then, and paused for just a moment – her hesitation only her own to see before she wetted and lathered up the skin of his head. Her fingers lingered in a caress as she worked, curious as she found skin where a mask had encumbered her before, and it was that contrast of sensation, that new memory of touch that calmed her more than anything else as she settled in about her task.

In the end, there was something strangely intimate about the interaction - perhaps even more so than the searching kisses that had traded in the dark the night before. There was something intimate about the way he turned his head into the blade in her hands, trusting her where she had caused blood to spill from so many others throughout the years. He leaned into the knife, as if seeking a caress from the blade, and Talia followed the knife's path with her left hand, testing out the smoothness of the skin she left behind. She worked carefully around the upraised scars lower on his skull, behind his ears and high on his neck, the nail of her thumb following in a teasing caress after the kiss of the blade departed. His head had lulled forward, like a great mythical beast entranced by some sorceresses spell, and for a moment she felt . . . honored that he let her see him so. He was perfectly content in that moment, perfectly at peace, even with the pain she imagined had to be ever constant without the press of his mask to his skin. He simply leaned towards her and trusted her to do what she would.

Her hand only shook on that very last stoke of the knife, humbled as she was and so very content, her lungs full with her feeling and her veins nearly liquid with their warmth as she put the blade away, taking her wet rag to wipe away any remains of soap that she had left behind. He leaned into her touch as she smoothed both of her palms over the sides of his skull, leaning forward to press a kiss to one of the scars the mask would normally hide. She smiled against his skin when she felt him shiver.

But her time was cut short when the timer beyond them went off, a sharp mechanical sound on the air that reminded them just how borrowed their time really was. With a sigh, Bane stood, and paused before her, looking down at her as if trying to figure out a puzzle, a riddle, and she tilted her head and let him look unhindered, hoping he'd find the answers he sought in the shape of her face, in the weight of her eyes . . .

When he reached for the mask again, she helped him with the straps, clicking the tubes into place, and snapping the stays closed in order to fit it snugly against his skin. He closed his eyes for a moment as the numbing coolness of the venom flooded through his veins, and his body lost any of its remaining stiffness as pain receded and calmed to something bearable to him. She bit her lip as she felt her heart constrict, not having noticed just how much he had been hiding before . . .

He turned his back to her, his massive chest rising and falling as he took a moment to collect himself, and she felt a moment of pain, a moment of_ my fault, my fault_,_ my fault,_ and _I am so, so sorry_, before she pushed the weakness away and squared her jaw, letting a shadow of his determination fill her as she watched him put himself back together before her.

She could touch him now, she thought as she closed that small step between them. She could trace the tips of her fingers over the massive scar that ran in spidering paths down the back of his spine. His skin was warm, very warm; and she wondered if that too was a byproduct of the venom or her own inexperience with touch and positive human contact. She knew how to push for skin to break, for bones to shatter, for bodies to bleed. But this was different, she thought as she added her palms to the caress, finding the muscle groupings in his back and massaging. He leaned into her touch like some great jungle cat, as greedy for her caresses as she felt compelled to give them.

She traced her fingers up the scars on his back to the base of his neck, and then higher still, right to the curve of his mask. She traced her nails over the line his mask created on his skin, finding the shape it made there. Near reverent, she ran followed that caress with her mouth, kissing over the underside of his jaw bone, just past where the mask covered, wanting him to feel and know touch without having to do so through a cloud of pain and white heat. She wanted him to register every touch, every sensation . . . to fix what had been wronged with her fingers and her mouth alone. Her touch followed the shape of his mask, her mouth kissing the high part of his cheekbone and the skin beneath his eyes as her fingers found scars and followed their patterns as if they were a map over his body as he just held her, his eyes fluttering closed as he processed the sensation. His hands rested on her sides, not holding her in place, but rather asking her not to leave. His fingers were warm enough that she could feel the heat of them through her tunic and on her skin, branding her . . .

"Cain will be by soon to check on my progress," he said, his warning voice a low rumble in his chest, once again breathy and distorted by his mask, but still just _Bane _to her ears.

"Soon," Talia repeated, smiling against his skin as she returned to her ministrations. "But not yet."

.

.

The next morning, she donned her cold gear and made her way out for the morning run with the other initiates of the League. And yet she was interrupted by Ubu, who said that her father had a task for her – a mission just south, in the Indian town of Gorakhpur. Ra's needed a Shadow on hand to make sure their control over the railways that went north into Nepal were secure, and he had chosen her to act in his stead, to go and . . . persuade the various heads of the railways to continue on with the prior year's arrangements.

Surprised that she was being sent away so soon after the altercation with Darrk, Talia nonetheless nodded and accepted her assignment as it was. At her side, her ribs ached at the thought of travel so soon, but she set her jaw and steeled herself. She was League trained and tried, and when the Demonhead said go, it was to her to do as commanded. It was an honor that Ra's was sending her, at any rate, and sending her alone with Ubu was a sign of trust. This trip was one she had made at her father's side the past two years, whenever the annual meeting came up, and she was equal to the task.

Still, not even years of training and obedience could not completely do away with the doubts swirling in the back of her mind – doubts that she tried to tell herself were merely the result of her own paranoia and concern as of late. Nothing more.

. . . nothing more.

So she traded her arctic gear for a more traditional _shalwar khameez_. The loose tunic and pants were stained a shade of deep red, as dark as wine, with silver and black embroidery around the neck and down the chest. She wore a set of silver bangles on each arm to complete the look, leaving her hair in its simple, thick braid. The outfit was comfortable and easy to move in – good for professional meetings as well as anything more physical if worse came to worst, though she did not expect it to. Throughout all of her travels, Indian fashions were some of her favourites, and she could admit that her closet held more of those styles than any other.

In the end, her time in Gorakhpur was short, and by the next day her business was already done. The leaders of the railways were more than willing to keep their prior arrangements with Ra's – seeing as how alliances with the League proved to be financially lucrative enough to erase any qualms the men may have had about legalities otherwise. Talia even had time left over to do some sightseeing in the city that she had not been able to do with her father. The locals specialized in terracotta ware, and she looked through the little shops, searching through the detailed odds and ends until she found a treasure in the shape of a hand made chess set - the pieces those of an Indian army, with elephants for knights and foot soldiers for pawns, each beautifully crafted and exquisitely detailed.

After that, she loitered in one of the shops that sold textiles, holding up one of the yards of silk that would go into making a saree. The fabric had deep sea green swirled patterns, with turquoise and copper highlights that fed into intricate tangles and tumbles before meeting a black and red-violet lining. She held the fabric against her skin, judging how the colours would compliment her complexion . . . and wondering just how Bane would like the coloring of it if she were to buy it.

The thought was a natural extension of her mind after the events of the last few days. But, as she stood there with the fabric draped over her skin, she realized that the thought was not a new one. How often had she purchased something, or dressed in some way, while distantly wondering whether or not _he_ would approve in the back of her mind? These feelings had always been within her, she realized, a flare of warmth under her skin. It had just taken her mind some time to catch up with what every instinct within her had long been saying.

She bought the whole spool of fabric in the end, and packed the fragile material around the terracotta chess pieces she had purchased, and considered the whole endeavor to be a success.

.

.

When she returned to the monastery, the sun was just falling from its high noon peak into its afternoon decent, painting the snow in bright silver and blue shades from the high light. Within the temple, the halls were torchlit and quiet, the warm glow from the flames a soothing counterpoint to the harsh light that spilled in from the windows, reflected from the mountain beyond.

Talia removed the scarf from over her head as the doors closed behind her and Ubu, but her eyes remained narrowed as she felt a warning hum low in her bones. The cold flame at the core of her was pulsing, as if anxious. This had been a sight that she had returned home to dozens upon dozens of times before, but she could not put her finger on what was different now this time over that before. Something was now wrong. Something was not the same.

Suddenly worried, she bit her lip and unbuttoned her coat, her boots leaving wet stains against the lacquered floor as she strode deeper into the halls. Her stride became quick as she made her way to Cain's wing of the monastery before her own room, needing to see and make sure, even if only to brush the strange warning in her veins away, to say _all was well_. That her worry was childish, that the warning inside of her was nothing more than her own paranoia and doubts . . .

"Talia?" Ubu's voice was a question behind her as he followed, but Talia paid him no heed as she picked up her pace, knowing that she was near running in her haste to make it to the healer's wing, but not caring. There was a concern in the assassin's voice . . . and a resignation. At the sound of it, her step turned quicker. Her hands became fists.

When she passed through the circular archway to Cain's domain, she immediately saw that something was not right. She stayed still in the entrance, her travel bag coming to fall to the floor next to her with a dull thud. Her eyes widened as she took in just _how many _men were in the infirmary. Before she had left, Cain's cases had been as few as they were trivial. There had been no large movement of men in her father's plans in the day she had been gone, no troops scheduled to come back to the mountain – especially with such a high number of those injured.

Sickened, and worried, she walked slowly down the center aisle, men hurt on her left and on her right as Cain's apprentices fluttered from bed to bed like ghosts, attending to this and that while Talia felt the sense of warning inside of her spike. It grew louder. The cold flame at the core of her rose, it grew to lick at the skin below her throat, deep in her chest.

"What happened?" she whispered as Ubu came to a halt behind her. She looked, but could see no wounds on the men caused by bullet or blade. They were all bruised, and many bore limbs broken and twisted in unnatural shapes, unnatural ways . . . And these were her father's men, his very best, she realized as she picked through the faces to find names beneath them – men she had trained alongside and fought back to back with. Men she respected. Those she would call brothers.

"Were we attacked?" was her question as she stopped by the bed nearest to her, looking down to see Qiang – a man who was particularly gifted with explosives, who was quick and small and had a mean right hook when pressed. She could see no wound on him, but the skin around his neck was shaded purple and red, bruised and battered as if he had been hoisted by the neck and strangled. There was the almost perfect shape of fingers shaded against his skin, but not the hand of a normal man. This was a large grip, a massive grip; with a freakish strength attached to it at that. And when Talia looked down and Qiang flinched away from her, that was when she knew.

She _knew_ . . .

"Where is Bane?"

"Talia," Ubu started gently, reaching out to touch her elbow - as if to draw her away, to turn her aside, understanding dawning in his eyes the same it had in hers.

"Where. Is. Bane?" her voice was a low hiss, dangerous and unholy. She could feel the cold flame inside of her flare, reaching out to escape through her mouth, making her syllables turn deadly with promise. Ubu looked as if he wished to take a step back from her, but he did not.

"Talia," he said instead, brave enough to try to console her, to _calm_ her.

Incensed, she pushed him away from her, stalking out of the main room of the infirmary to the private ones. She counted the doors, felt the wood of his give under her fingers as she pushed . . .

To reveal a room in tatters. The hangings were ripped from the walls, the simple accommodations on the bed were in disarray, and the glass vials of Bane's venom were in shattered pieces on the floor, along what looked to be the broken remains of a china tea set, one Talia remembered picking out for him in Beijing . . .

"Where is he?" she asked once more, calmly this time, her brain already having processed what had happened while she was gone. But she needed to hear it said, she needed to know for a fact . . .

But Ubu was silent at her side, and with a slamming of the door, Talia flung herself away from Bane's hospital room and out into the corridor again. Her stride was menacing as she stalked down the halls to the personal quarters of Ra's and those closest to him. She didn't bother checking Bane's room – she knew she would find it empty of her friend. That room, and any other in the monastery.

He was gone.

. . . he was _gone_.

Instead she stalked towards her father's study, knowing she would find Ra's there. The corridors twisted before her like something living, and the shadows shimmered and parted for her as she came to the polished wooden doors and flung them open.

A counterpoint for her tempestuous fury – her hair loosened from her braid in her anger, her eyes fuming as she stood half leaning forward, her hands fists at her sides as if ready to strike - her father was the opposite. Ra's' desk was thick with charts and missives and reports, but the Demonhead had not an eye for any of the workings of the League. Instead he stood at the wide window of the room, facing away from the door in order to stare at the horizon beyond as he clasped his hands behind his back. He stood very still, very nearly a part of the mountains beyond as Talia stood in the doorway, her eyes murderous, her chest heaving with her inability to take a calm breath.

"Where is Bane?" when she spoke, her voice was deathly low, a whisper of the rage she could feel grow within her.

Ra's did not turn to her. At her side, Ubu was a shadow, looking from his master and then back to her with trepidation in his gaze. Talia paid him no heed as she stared at Ra's' back.

"He is gone," her father answered simply. "And he will not be coming back."

"Gone," she repeated the word, trying to force it off her tongue. She couldn't seem to speak anything else around the word. "He is gone . . ."

"And he will not return," Ra's' said simply, his voice stern. She watched as he seemed to square his shoulders, to settle himself to his decision as he spoke of it to the one it would strike the hardest. "Not under the pain of death."

"Excommunicated," Talia forced the word off of her tongue. _Excommunicated_. A fate worse than death to the brothers of the shadows who had found their place and their purpose under the Demonhead's roof. _Excommunicated_. While Bane had never embraced their cause, it would strike him the same, but for different reasons . . .

_Excommunicated . . ._

How long had he been gone? she wondered, her mind already moving a mile a minute over how to catch up with him, how to accompany him . . . What to bring with her, and where to go next. Fury licked through her bones like something living, and at the sound of it in her voice, her father finally turned to look at her.

"Excommunicated," he repeated evenly, his voice an echo to the tempest of thoughts in her head. His voice was level, even, as if he was talking to her about the balance of a new blade. "For his failure."

At that, Talia snorted. The sound was shaky on her lips. "For that farce of a mission with Darrk?" she returned incredulously. "That mission was a death's march, and you know that as well as I."

Ra's' eyes narrowed, but she did not take the calm facade he presented at face value. His hands were white knuckled from where they were regally clasped together. The skin at the corners of his eyes was tight. He had as much fury in his veins as she did, just harnessed, controlled; a lesson he had spent years trying to impart on to her . . .

And yet, he ignored her words about Darrk, and spoke to the heart of the matter rather than its edges. "If you choose to leave with him, the choice is yours. But remember that you do so without the backing of the League, and you leave with dishonor attached to his name as well as yours."

Perhaps, a year ago, those words would have struck her more then as they did now. Upon hearing them, she felt a hurt in her side, like a knife, but it was a dull pain, a numb sensation that she wished . . . she _wished_ she felt more at. "There is nothing honorable about your actions today," she returned, her voice as calm as she could make it. Her fisted hands trembled. There was a black feeling in her bones, rising into her lungs.

"It is only your wishes – and my feelings as a father for those wishes – that have kept that man here for so long. He does not believe in our cause, daughter. He has not given his very soul to the shadows and their ways like every other man here. I could keep him no longer when it is clear to all that he will never learn," the corners of Ra's' voice turned fervent. "There are many who have spoken, and spoken dangerously about my show of favoritism – allowing him to continue on where any other would have been ended in his place."

And Talia remembered Darrk, the anger in his eyes, and the hurt . . . How many in the League thought as he did? How many did Ra's keep away by the force of his name and the weight of his legend?

Not enough, apparently, and any sympathy Talia felt was quickly killed away when she remembered the ruined state of Bane's room when she arrived. She remembered the trust in his eyes, the night before; the awe as she had traced over his scarred face as if the wounds there were not his own but rather hers instead . . .

"And so, where you could not get an enemy hand to kill him, you chose to do this instead," Talia muttered, her voice furious for all of the softness it held.

Ra's tilted his head – a rebuke. "Bane saw honor in the end that was chosen for him; a way out that would have hurt you the least. He chose to walk that path, but_ you _would not let him."

"Of course I would not," Talia snapped, her head flinging up at the inherent disapproval in the words. "He is _my friend_. Of course I would not let him march to his death, especially at _your_ command. His life means more to me than my own, can't you see that?" Her voice slithered in frustration at her inability to make him understand. Moons and tides they were to each other, symbiont circles even, and one could not be without the other. Even still, she could not make him _see_.

"And your feelings have kept him alive until now," Ra's returned, his voice curling in distaste at the words. "He is simply excommunicated, nothing more. Don't make me decide to end his life as well."

"As if you could," Talia snorted. "I saw Cain's wing. Bane plowed through at least two dozen of your best men, and even they were not enough to slow him down."

Ra's' eyes flashed. "Do you not see, he is _dangerous_, he is violent -"

And Talia felt fury bite up into her lungs. It was hard to breathe in that moment. "Of course he was when you attacked him in such a way!" She closed her eyes as she remembered the Pit, as she remembered the sea of men surrounding him, drowning him . . . How he must have felt to be attacked in the same way again, with nothing but the memory of pain, so much pain, to accompany such a thing in his mind. He would have fought like a cornered animal, and understandably so . . . It was a testament to his control that he had not killed each and every one of those men.

Talia thought this, but did not say it aloud. Those memories . . . they were hers and his, they were sacred, and she cared not to share them. " . . . it was not wise on your part, to attack him in such a way," she finished lamely, knowing that her father would see a shadow of her thoughts in her eyes, no matter how well she thought them to be hid.

Ra's was silent a moment, letting her words pass. Finally, when he spoke, his words were gentle. They struck more than any word sharply spoken. "When he was merely your pet beast, your _friend_, I could look the other way. But daughter, do you not see how much you care for him? How much your feelings bind you? You would have died at Darrk's base," and finally, his words were choked in his mouth, he unused to feeling as much as she, this the closest to sentiment that would ever be shared between them. "You would have died . . . all for an attachment that has become _too_ much. _Too _close . . . and you do not even see it as I do."

His words fell on her skin like blows, but not in the way he intended them. He knew . . . she finally realized. He _knew_, and he had known. He had known for longer than she did about just how much Bane meant to her . . . and he had wished to end things before she too realized the strength of their bond, the strength of her feelings . . . But his blade had moved too slowly. He had not moved quick enough to sunder their connection . . .

And Talia thought about the pain in her bones when Bane had taken off after Darrk alone, and the peace in her heart as she had touched his scarred face and felt his ruined mouth kiss her even as pain flared in his veins . . . She thought about the giddy rise of euphoria as she had picked out the silk in Gorakhpur, the sick fear that she had held when she had returned to find Bane's room empty, the belongings within resting in tatters . . . She had felt as if a piece of herself had been torn away as well, and she could not . . .

"I love him," she finally said as her thoughts turned in on themselves in her mind. They rose like a crescendo, deafening anything else, louder than any other thought.

"What?" Ra's shook his head, dumbfounded as the words spilled from her lips.

"I love him," she repeated, the words coming from her mouth as if startled as she processed the words and found a truth to them on her lips.

And Ra's eyes narrowed. "Talia," he said, his voice a warning.

But she shook her head, such a smile building on her face as she felt the realization light like a fuse in her belly. "I love him," she said again, just to hear the words aloud, a bubble of laughter on her tongue to follow the declaration – the words that felt like _feeling_, that felt like _rising_.

And so she stood with her shoulders straight and her chin turned up. She squared her stance, and looked at her father with the mountain in her eyes as she challenged him to rebuke – to downplay or scorn what she felt, "I love him," she said for the last time – the last time she would share such a sacred feeling with any other but Bane – her _Baldassare_. "And if you wish him gone, I will abide by your wishes. I have seen what discord and murmuring can do in a place such as this with Darrk . . . but father, do not make me choose him over you, for it is a battle you will lose."

As Ra's looked on at her as if struck, she liked to think that this was how her mother felt, proud and determined and willing to give up all as she stared down the thing that stood between her and her family – between her and that which she had claimed as her own. Oftentimes, Talia had wondered what sort of impetus had moved Melisande to condemn herself so, not understanding such a love, such a regard . . . Now she knew, that if the choice was hers, she would condemn herself to the Pit and any hell worse than that a thousand times over if it meant that she would spare him even the slightest bit of pain. It was nothing to consider in her mind, no choice or thought or debate . . . It was instinct and possession, and _you shall not touch what is mine._ It was a white feeling at her fingertips, stronger than the cold flame inside of her, which was now _burning_.

Ra's was silent in the wake of her words, and she shook her head before continuing, "You speak of anger, you speak of hate, you speak of fear," and the last word and that word alone came out to wound. "And yet, he is the antithesis to all of that . . . he is . . . he is hope to me. He is _peace _for me."

A flicker of disgust passed over Ra's face, quickly hidden away, but it did not matter anymore. It did not wound her. "All of this time," she continued, "it has always been your fear, your pain, your anger, that has stood between you and accepting Bane. You look at him, and see your own failure as a father, as a husband, and now it is too much and you can deal with it no more . . ." Now it was her turn for her words to barb, her thoughts to strike.

And Ra's, great and terrible before her, took a step back. He looked like he wished to speak. But what could he say when her words were true? And a part of her felt pity, a part of her ached with his pain . . . but that part was second in her mind. That part was second in her _heart_.

"Talia," Ra's whispered, her name a plea, a question -

"No," she whispered, "I cannot."

- to which he already knew her answer.

"There is always something to fear," she said quietly, turning from her father and the mountains beyond. "But not him. Never him."

With that, she turned on her heel and left. She brushed past the startled looking Ubu, and pushed open the doors to the study with limbs that shook with the adrenaline within her. And there, and only there, she hesitated a stride. She waited . . . she waited for him to call her back. She waited for him to stop her.

. . . but he did neither.

He let her go.

And Talia held her head up high and let the cold flame in the core of her burn bright. _He meant nothing_, she swore as the deep parts of her mourned, and try as she may, she told herself that she believed it.

_He meant nothing to her._

She crossed the threshold. One foot and then the other until even her shadow was gone from sight.

She did not look back.

.

.

Bane had not gone far when she found him.

After so many years in the mountains, they both knew the slopes like the backs of their own hands. And she knew of the caves on the southern side of the glacier where Bane would often go to when he needed respite or time away from Ra's and the others. She knew how much Bane had taken on his shoulders to live life in the League, and he had endured mightily throughout the years – all for her, always for her. He had pushed onwards where anyone else would have given up, would have moved on. He had wanted her to know a family. He had wanted her to know comradeship and brotherhood. And he had endured it at her side as long as he could.

All for her. Always for her.

. . . again.

And now, this time, she could do something for him.

She had enough funds for them to live off of in the names of a dozen aliases. Most of them her father knew about, but there were those few – those precious few, that were hers and hers alone, made for exactly a situation like this. Although she had never wanted to plan for it, she had wanted to be prepared for any continuity, for nothing in life was stable, and all could be taken away . . .

She packed only what she needed, taking what little she had that was of value and leaving the rest where it laid. There were some things of hers she would miss – her books, her trinkets and mementos built up from years of travels and seeing the world on the wings of the League. She left them all. They were merely things – paper and stone and steel, and all could be replaced. She waited until the sun started to set, and slipped into Cain's office before she left, stealing what she could of Bane's venom, and hoping that they would have enough to last them until they could find a way to produce more of it on their own. Already she had ideas, but she would have to share them with him first. They would have to decide where to go to next . . . together.

Together.

_For him_.

It was that simple thought – that only motivation – that kept her head up high and her stride silent as she stole away from the monastery. She was able to sneak away without a fight, without a sound, and a part of her wondered if her father even had a guard assigned to watch for her leaving . . .

She wondered if he had finally washed his hands of her.

But she was not stopped, and no one stood in her way as she picked her way down the mountain, using the limited light of the setting sun to make her way to where she knew Bane would be . . . where she hoped he would be, at least. He would not leave without her, not after everything they had been through, not when they still had so much to share . . .

Sure enough, he was in the back of one of the larger caves, a fire built, warming the small space past the frigid conditions of the mountain beyond. The flames painted the cave golden and inviting, even as it cast distorted shadows on Bane and his mask, making the breathing apparatus seem to be something spidering in the half light, apparition shaped.

"You waited for me?" she announced her presence as she balanced herself on the ice right beyond the cave. She tossed her head imperiously to emphasize her words, even if the movement lost some of its weight with her hair tucked into her hood as it was. Still the sentiment was the same as she let her mouth stretch teasingly. "Such arrogance you have, to assume that I would follow you so."

"And yet, here you are, my dear," Bane raised his hands, encompassing the silent mountain, the glowing cave around them.

_My dear_, not little one – not child or youth or naïvety. Talia turned her head up at the pride she felt at the endearment, and imagined that she caught his smile, even covered as it was by the mask. The mountain evening was cool and dark, and yet he was as the sun all around her, close enough to touch -

"I knew not else where to go," she admitted, coming in to sit by the fire next to him. He took her large pack from her with one arm, easily setting it aside. She turned down her fur hood, and bit her lip as she studied his face, looking for his thoughts in the line of his brows, the cast of his eyes.

A heartbeat. His mouth worked under the mask. "The family you leave behind," he started to say, and Talia cut him off by reaching over to place her hand on his mask. She narrowed her eyes – a warning.

"My family is what I leave with," she said. "He means nothing to me."

Bane's eyes shadowed for a moment. They weighed her as they had those years ago – when she had insisted that she had learned a lesson that he had known that she did not completely understand. But he did not say anything more. He would not give his doubt to the air. He would keep it inside until he was called to act or she grew above the weakness that still clung to her.

"We can stay here for the rest of the night," he said then. "Tomorrow we can make our way down the mountain."

"And where to then, my friend?" she asked, forming her pack into a semblance of a pillow as she arranged herself comfortably around the fire. She looked up at him from underneath her eyelashes, and she could have sworn that he was smiling - his eyes were bright with more than just the reflection of the fire.

"Wheresoever you wish, my dear. Wheresoever you wish."

.

.

The mountain shadowed her farewell to all she knew while far away, a world away, a young man stood tall before the face of injustice and said, _do your worst_. When morality in the way it worked in a rotting city and the weight of old wrongs, still fresh, could not be forgotten, he put aside his name and his place in order for uncertainty and someday, he hoped, understanding.

Talia closed her eyes that night, and dreamed that she was a child again, climbing from the depths of the Pit. But she could not make her ascent when the air was filling with bats, their black wings striking like small razors and their screeches louder than the sea of angry men below. And so Talia jumped, and jumped blind . . .

And Bruce awakened to the sound of the sea and the hum of the massive ship around him, and wondered if his tale had truly just begun.

.

.

They waited until twilight was falling the next day, and instead of going down the mountain by way of the hamlet, they hiked to one of the smaller villages that dotted the foothills. Once there, it was relatively easy to steal the transport they needed and start heading west. They were able to make the drive to Meerut, just northeast of New Delhi, by the early morning hours, each of them taking turns sleeping, just in case they were followed by her father. Truthfully, Talia did not know whether or not Ra's would spare the men and the time to hunt them down and drag her back, but she would not take that chance. Not now. Not after everything.

In Meerut they switched cars, and then it was on into Pakistan, and finally Lahore, the city there large enough for them to recover themselves and regroup. Talia found a small room for them to rent in the older and poorer part of the city after they ditched their transport again, both her face and Bane's covered so as to not bring any attention to themselves, and no one glanced at them twice.

There they decided to lay low for a few days, in order to test out the waters around them and make sure they were safe in their course. Bane looked over the maps and the charts that they had brought with them while trying to decide where to go to next, while Talia laid out which of her aliases and accounts would still be usable after her father made his way through her League funded ones and saw they were no more.

And they counted out how much venom Bane would have to live on until it was necessary for them to find a way to get more for him. Between what he had, and she had stolen, he had about a two month supply – which meant they would have to move fast to find a chemist willing to help them – or find one they could force, Talia was not picky on that point.

To that point, she knew that there was a League safehouse in Lahore, right outside of the Anarkali bazaar, south of the old city. A careful scouting of the building revealed that it was occupied – as were all in a thousand mile radius of the mountains, she would wager. While she did not think her father would send men after her, she very much believed that he would offer her no aid, either. Either way, she made a note of the men there, and whether or not they were mobilized and moving, deciding to keep a careful eye on them until she and Bane moved on from Lahore to their next destination.

She was careful not to reveal herself, and none of the men therein gave any notice of her presence. The next day, she walked through the market with her veil pulled tight over her face, picking through fruit stands and other collections of odds and ends while she looked at the shape the shadows made, at the reflections in the copper vases before her, always watching the shuffle of people around her.

When twilight came, Talia headed to the edge of the bazaar, to the white octagonal mausoleum that the neighborhood took its name from. At first she lingered outside, looking on the crumbling parts of the walls, the white tiles and the small artistic details that spoke of such a care, such a love that had been put into the building when it had been built, no matter how unkind the passage of time was to it now.

Darting a glance once more over her shoulder, she made the decision to step inside. Within, the dying sun from beyond spilled in through the high windows, painting the white stone in shades of flame and gold. The coffin before her was simple and squared, as white as its surroundings, the paint chipping in places here and there as she reached out to touch the numerous names of god that were written on the lid of the slumbering maiden.

She let her fingers fall from Anarkali's lid to the side, finding an inscription there, more than the names of Allah above, but rather that of an earthly attachment, an earthly hope . . .

She opened her mouth, to read aloud, when a voice from behind her spoke,

"Would I give thanks unto my God unto the day of resurrection. Ah! Could I then behold the face of my beloved once more?"

The peace of the tomb lost its serenity as Talia stiffened, instantly alert. She spun about, looking over her shoulder to see Ubu standing there, leaning against the entryway, his hands folded lazily, his eyes as warm and fond as ever.

Even still, Talia stood with her hand on the blade she had hidden under her robes. Her eyes were sharp, her mouth thin as worry filled her, thinking of Bane and where she had left him, and -

"You steal though the shadows as one born to them, child, but you have not yet learned all you need to know," Ubu's voice was chiding, and she fisted her hand over the hilt of her dagger at the tone. Silly of her then, to believe that she had been alone . . .

Talia made a face. "I wished to know which of my father's yapping dogs were at my heels," she said, her lips drawing away from her teeth as she spoke. "This seemed as good a way as any, at the time."

And Ubu straightened from his lazy pose. He lifted his hands in the air – a pacification. "I alone noticed you in the market, and I alone followed you," he said gently.

Her eyes narrowed. "What if I do not believe you?" she countered. Her blade lifted an inch from its holster, revealing a sliver of sharpened steel.

And still, he made no move for a weapon. "I swore back when my name was still my own, to protect the name of al-Ghul," he said simply, as if that should mean everything. "You, child, bear the name which I have spent my life protecting."

"My father's name," she returned, "My father's wishes."

Ubu inclined his head. "I will always protect the head of the demon . . . even from that which he would harm himself."

Talia stood very still for a moment, wanting to believe that she could release the knife at her belt. Her fingers tightened, once. She inhaled, wanting so badly to trust, to think true the friendship the man before her had always shown . . .

She exhaled. Her hand fell from the weapon at her side.

And she turned to face the sarcophagus again. A moment passed, one and then the other. She could sense as Ubu moved behind her, but she did not feel a fight in his stride. Gently then, she lifted her fingers to touch the second inscription on the coffin, the one she had just noticed. "The one profoundly enamored of Saleem, son of Akbar," she whispered, as if anything more of the woman and her love would stir the ghost and her pain. She cared not to turn the eyes of the dead onto the living in her own resting place.

"A sad story, that," Ubu gave, stepping forward to stand next to her. He kept his hands in front of him, where she could see if he were to move for a weapon. She took notice, but did not completely relax, knowing that no man of the Shadows needed steel to do a harm.

And Ubu's smile stretched sadly as he looked down at the coffin before them. "A young woman," he whispered the tale in the same reverent tone she had used, "buried alive by the Great Mughal emperor Akbar when his son the prince announced that he loved and was going to marry a mere dancer. When the prince went to war against his father for her hand, his forces were quickly outnumbered, and rather than see her love die, the dancer drugged the prince with the pomegranate blossoms she was named after, and then bartered her life to the emperor for that of the prince while he slept. It was a sad end – a brave end – for a girl guilty of nothing more than loving that which she could not have. And now here she lies, forever immortalized once her lover became emperor himself, and was free to honor her as she deserved . . ."

"A silly story," Talia whispered, her hands falling from the inscriptions in order to fist at her side. "Based more in local lore than actual fact."

"Perhaps," Ubu shrugged. "Perhaps parts of Anarkali's tale are true, perhaps much is not. Perhaps it was only a warning for the populace at the time, to keep the caste system alive and uncontested. Perhaps the whole of the story was true, and love did flourish where it was said it could not. Either way, the story is the reason that your father chose to base a safehouse in this quarter. It struck true with him, and he could not let it go."

"If the tale struck true," Talia snorted, "then he learned not of it's words."

"Perhaps," Ubu said, tilting his head. His smile was sad. "Then again, he did not expect me to find you here when he sent me with the men to Lahore. At least, he did not expect me to bring you back to the mountains."

And Talia raised a brow. "Then why are you here?" she questioned, suspicious.

"To give you this," Ubu said, handing her a thin slip of paper, never taking his eyes from Anarkali's coffin before them.

Talia raised a brow, and looked down to see the name and address written on the paper. "And this I would believe less than if my father sent a whole legion of men after me. He would not give me aid."

"No, he would not," Ubu agreed, his voice stern. "He is too proud, and he wears his pain and love too deeply to let it see the day. But he knows that I would give this to you without him having to order me to do so. Perhaps, in his own mind, he can pass it off as my own stubbornness at seeing you well in the world. Perhaps it is easier for him that way."

"I care not over what is easy for him," Talia replied, her voice icy. The red sunlight caught beneath her veil as she spoke, her eyes reflected the light as flames.

Ubu sighed. "There is a pharmaceutical chemist, in Izmir, who does work similar to Cain's when it comes to anesthesia. We considered recruiting him long ago, but decided that he was not . . . appropriate for the work the League does."

"Too squeamish?" Talia raised a brow as she looked down at the address in her hand. "Or too corrupt?"

"Too kind," Ubu countered, a more damning sentence than both for those who wished to prosper in the League of Shadows. "But, I believe that that may be something that will work to your betterment now. Tell him that Armagon sent you. He will know of that which you speak."

She nodded slowly, a small part of the struggles she and Bane now had to face put to rest. From this they could move on . . . in any direction.

Seeing the decision in her eyes, Ubu inclined his head in a half a bow – not the sort he reserved for her father, but a mark of respect nonetheless, and then he turned to leave.

Talia looked up as he left, and felt a weight on her chest, one shaped as all goodbyes were. For a moment, she let it hurt. "Ubu," she called after him. "I . . . I thank you," she finally forced the words off of her tongue, the syllables snaring as if they were thorns in her mouth. " . . . for being my friend."

When Ubu smiled, the look was sad, but fond. "You need not, child," he said gently. "And the road before you is long for one so young. I believe we will meet again before our paths come to their end."

She inclined her head and nodded, not returning his words where she had already said enough. The words felt like a weakness in her chest, and so she let the pain close as if it had a door attached to it. She breathed in with her missing. She breathed out and said goodbye.

"Until we meet again," Ubu bowed his head, and then turned slowly from the interior of the tomb. He left her, falling into step with the shadows that crept into the land from the approaching night, and she watched him go until she could see him no more.

Talia lingered for only a moment longer, cold in the company of Anarkali's ghost, thinking of her mother and her sacrifice, and then of the grandfather she never knew – the man who allowed her mother to descend into hell in place of her father all out of petty spite and wounded pride. Talia still held an instinctive hatred in her heart for the man who had kept her parents apart – who had made it so that Ra's would never see his daughter without seeing also the ghost of her mother, and she wondered now if Ra's realized just how acutely history was repeating itself . . . Did he not realize that their stories were not all that different, his and hers? She had merely fought against her own ending, and now her tale was to go on where her parent's had been torn asunder . . . Even then, she knew that Ra's did not have the evil in his heart that her grandfather did, just a misguided attempt to protect . . . to nurture and to shield in the only way he knew how.

She still held anger in her heart, quick and blaming, but no longer did she let it consume her. She pushed it away. It had a hold on her no more. So she inhaled deeply, and rose to her feet, her fingers reaching to touch the inscription on the sarcophagus as she left, the words of love and love torn asunder, written underneath the many names of god . . .

And then she left, the shadow of Anarkali's tomb falling behind her as she walked before that too faded from sight.

.

.

They reached Izmir, Turkey, a week later, driving a good portion of the way before Talia brought out a whole section of a commuter train, and she and Bane traveled west by that route. They finally covered the last part of their trip by boat over the Mediterranean sea and up into the Aegean waters. Talia didn't trust flying, not so soon after their leaving her father, and that would be another thing for her to look into once they had time to gather their feet underneath themselves again – expiated forms of traveling, much as the League had arranged worldwide.

The Gulf of Izmir was a natural harbor created by the Aegean sea. With the sea to the west, and mountains and foothills surrounding the harbor and the Gediz river valley like an embrace, Talia could easily say that it was one of the more perfectly situated cities she had visited in her travels so far. With her alias, she bought out a small thermal resort in Balçova, one of the districts of Izmir that was on the water, in the heart of the city on the southern side of the harbor. The whole city was green, teaming with movement and life. The older streets were still cramped and rich with history, while the modern parts of the city were all metal and glass cocooned by the water and the green mountains all around them. The air was fresh and sweet smelling from the water, and the sun was just starting to go down when they arrived, painting the city in shades of pink and gold as water reflected the dying rays back into the sky for a breathtaking display.

"If I were to believe in omens, I would call this a good sign," she said as they stood in the open air of the harbor. Bane nodded once, the dying light catching on the tubes of his mask before he looked away.

The city around them was teeming with people, and a diverse collection of them at that. Thankfully, there was more than enough of a Muslim populace for Talia to cover her head without seeming out of place. Bane too kept his head covered, and in the low evening hours he could move from place to place well enough without causing too much of a stir in a crowd. Bane was already massive – enough to draw the eye even without the added curiosity of a mask, and the last thing they wanted was too much attention in a new place, especially a place where they could not leave until their goal was accomplished. The further and further west in the world they went, the harder it was for her friend to blend in without making use of the shadows, and at the thought Talia felt something inside of her ache, something almost like regret.

Their business in Izmir would carry on until the chemist Ubu recommended could replicate Cain's serum, and then Talia's alias - Ilke Çelik - already had land holdings in the southeast of Turkey, on the Mediterranean sea, and from there they would plan their next step into the world.

For now, they settled in to their room in the empty hotel – Talia having paid for all of the rooms, and then extra to limit the staff of the building to only those necessary, paid to come and go around their own timeframe. The manager had not minded the arrangement in the slightest, and the employees were well paid for their unexpected vacation, and so Talia and Bane were greeted by peace and emptiness when they checked themselves in – not one curious eye or shadow besides their own to see.

She had done her research on the trip to Izmir, and after a day or two of following her mark, she knew all she needed to know in order to proposition the man. Kerem Yilmaz was a pharmaceutical biochemist who did work out of Konak, one of the central districts in Izmir. That close to the harbor, the scent of the sea was sharp, the sound of the waves fighting with the sound of traffic and people mingling. His labs looked out on Kültürpark, a vast and sprawling park, full of dense foliage and numberous fountains, the traditional fair grounds of the rolling city around her.

Kerem's work was not open to the public, so Talia breathed in deep and posed herself as a potential investor in his research when talking to his assistant. She used Ubu's alias as a name to bait and hook Kerem's interest, and the next thing she knew she was waiting on one of the park benches in order to meet him – not wanting to propose her plan in earshot of anyone he may be working with until his cooperation was assured. Undoubtedly, her father knew each man in the world who could help with her and Bane's unique predicament, and . . . if things did not head in a favourable direction, the less who knew about her dealings with Kerem, the better.

She sat in a clearing where many of the park's paths met. In the center of the crossroads there was a tiered white fountain with crystal blue waters within, singing merrily in the late morning sun. The fronds of the palm trees and colourful spring blooms danced in time to the song of the fountains, a sweet smelling wind from the sea blowing over the earth and combining song and dance into something mesmerizing as people walked to and fro, enjoying the respite of the day. Talia sat observing them all idly, wearing a lightweight grey coat that went down to her knees, with double buttons over her chest and belted tight at her waist. She wore dressy black slacks and low heels to complete the look, her hair left down to curl slightly over her shoulders, just visible from where it spilled out of the silvery grey scarf she had raised up to cover her hair, like many of the woman around her did.

When Kerem came, Talia let her eyes fall over him, taking in the differences of the man before her and in the pictures she had seen ahead of time when she had planned this venture. He was in his early forties, with dark olive skin, made so by his time in the sun, she noticed, seeing where the shade of his skin was lighter under the collar at his neck, his sleeves as well. He had rich dark hair, just starting to grey at the temples, with lines in his face that came more from smiling than age. He had steady hands though, and a smart gaze.

He picked her out of the crowd easily enough, and reached out his hand to her, his mouth stretching into a welcoming smile. "I am Doctor Kerem Yilmaz," he introduced himself in Turkish. "I take it you are Miss Çelik."

She shook his hand, taking in his strong grip and the calluses at his fingertips. Her smile stretched, all ease and friendliness to those who did not know it as a hunting gaze. "Guilty as charged," she said warmly, slipping into the rolling language easily enough. "I must thank you for agreeing to meet me here."

"No," Kerem waved a hand, "the pleasure is mine. Although, I must admit to my . . . surprise when I read over your proposal. A good surprise, but surprise nonetheless."

He was not a fool then, Talia held her smile, but inwardly felt more at ease at the show of suspicion more than anything else. He was not one to blindly take such a gift. He had questions.

"I have a . . . personal interest in your work, you may say," Talia said carefully. "But that is a long story, for another time, perhaps. May we walk?" she asked. She thought better on her feet, with movement, and really, the day was too lovely to waste with sitting still.

She stood, and Kerem shadowed her stride as they started down one of the paths that cut through the tropical foliage. The sounds of fountains chased their steps.

"Armagon," she started, giving Ubu's alias without a syllable to betray the false name, "spoke highly of you and your work. It was his high recommendation that prompted my own investigation, and I must admit that I am impressed by what I found."

Kerem shrugged, neither denying her words of his talent nor confirming them; modesty without deprecation. She took note of his response, even as she continued to look straight ahead. "I remember him," Kerem said carefully in response to her words. "He too was interested in funding my research, but the job would have included moving to Tibet. There are some great findings that have been published from that area of the world over the last few years."

She nodded. "Indeed," she replied smoothly, nothing on her face giving away her knowledge of Cain or his published findings. "And yet, that area of research has proven to be a dry well for me. Every word in the proposal I gave you was sincere. I can provide you annual investments in the figures you received, if you would do one favor for me in the beginning."

"Ah, the catch," Kerem said good-naturedly. But he was curious, at least. And her offered donations were something he could not take lightly if he valued his life's work at all. In that moment, Talia found herself liking him, just the smallest bit, and she hoped to whatever deity he served that he agreed to her terms, if not . . . she knew that his wife, Emil, too worked in his offices, but that she returned home an hour early to care for their children after their school hours. She knew the route that the woman took, the market she liked to visit to pick up foodstuffs for dinner, and her sick mother who she attended to on her way home. She knew he had two children, the eldest a girl of eight named Selin and a little boy named Emre, who was not yet six years of age. If she had to, she would not hesitate to acquire a pawn or three, but she was tired in that moment, weary deep down in her bones, and she wished not to spill the blood of a family . . .

"The favor is, I hope, a simple one," Talia started carefully. "And, to me, it is as personal as it is discreet, I trust?"

"I am a doctor," Kerem said simply. "I care about the sciences of the matter. If I can help, I will."

She tilted her head, and finally, she decided to take her leap. "I have a friend, very dear to me, who suffers from severe nerve damage to his face. His pain is perpetual, and without cure. Where the root of his pain cannot be treated with traditional methods, we have devised a mask that allows him to function past the pain. But the drug which keeps the pain at bay . . . The former supplier I no longer have any access to, and I wish to find alternate means of devising such a supplement."

The doctor was silent for a moment, processing. Talia walked on in silence, listening to the chatter of the brightly colored birds in the trees around them. She reached out a hand to touch a violet bloom as they passed, its petals velvet soft against her skin. "This is a lot of money," Kerem said carefully, "just to ease your friend's pain."

"I would pay that and more," Talia said simply. She did not say that his burden was born for her, and she did not bother to explain her connection to her masked friend, or he to her. The scientist had all he needed before him, and now the choice was his. "The price matters not."

"May I ask what became of your last supplier?" Kerem asked, ever sharp, and Talia felt the corner of her mouth quirk up, knowing he would see the gesture for what it was now.

"As personal as they are discreet," she repeated, and he nodded, letting the question drop even as it took up residence in his eyes.

She reached into the pocket of her coat, and found the glass vial that resided there. She handed the dose of venom to Kerem, and said. "This is the compound that was treating him before, I trust that that will be enough to get you started?"

Kerem took the glass vial carefully, looking down as if he held something fanged in his hand. "I will do what I can," he said, and in that measure, he was sincere, and Talia released a breath she had not realized she had been holding. "If it would be possible, I would like to meet whoever I am to be treating, so I can understand exactly what I am up against."

Talia nodded, expecting the request, though she did not particularly like it. It was a necessary risk.

"My friend has a little over a six week supply left to him," she said. "I am sorry to ask you to work within such a deadline, but I am afraid that I must."

Kerem's eyes fluttered in surprise, then in question. "Is the pain that bad then?" he asked, nothing in his voice but the empathy Ubu had spoken of, and the innate curiosity all in his profession bore.

"Excruciating," Talia said simply, forcing the syllables off of her tongue until they sounded numb. Her next breath hurt in her lungs.

Some of her thoughts must have shown in her eyes, for in the next moment, Kerem fisted his hand over the vial and put it away carefully. He agreed to see her case, and their deal was struck. There were worse things the money of the League had funded over the years, and Talia felt cautiously hopeful about their path, as unsure as it was . . .

The next evening, Talia and Bane met Kerem at his lab. It was easy enough to move Bane with his face covered and the shadows distorting that which was visible. If anyone noticed the masked man and the girl with him, no one commented or looked twice, and they made it to their destination without incident.

Bane had been more leery than her at so blindly asking for help, but she knew not where else to turn, and the fact of the matter was that without aid they would be without a way to mask Bane's pain, and that was out of the question. They would not fail here; Talia would not let them.

Kerem was professional as they explained how the mask worked, and outlined Bane's various symptoms. Talia tried to keep her hands steady as she helped Bane with the localized anesthesia he used when he was without his mask, but worry made her fingers thick in a way that no battle to date had. Even still, she found ways to let her touch linger under the pretense of helping him. She traced her thumb over the flesh she was revealing when she finally pulled the mask away, her eyes saying what her mouth could not with such company with them.

If Kerem noticed her stolen touches or silent support, he said nothing, and his eyes revealed even less. She was thankful that he was professional, in that manner, at least, when his surprise over the ruined state of Bane's face showed in little more than a widening of his eyes, before even that was tucked away under the force of Bane's fierce glower, as if daring the doctor to step forth and do his work. It was an instinctive force, like that of an animal backed into a corner, and when the doctor turned to fetch his notepad, Talia reached over to grab Bane's hand in an open show of support, only letting her touch fade away when Kerem turned back around. Bane's eyes found hers thankfully before turning back to Kerem.

Kerem's examination was quick and clinical, the only questions he asked those he absolutely needed to know in order to proceed with his own work. He never questioned Talia about the price she was willing to pay after that, and yet she was thankful that it was kindness rather than pity in his gaze when he told to them his findings. She would have been less sure how to deal with that than she would have suspicion or open disgust . . . A part of her, half feral and Pit-born, disliked having the doctor look at, _touch_ even, what was hers; but that was a part of her that she feared even more than the cold flame at the core of her. It was a dark part of her; an animalistic corner of her mind that was all _survive_ and _climb_ and _care not who bleeds_, and she did her best to push it away, trying to think only of Bane and how all would be well, if they could just make it past this one hurdle . . .

In the end, Kerem said that he had a base molecular structure from the vial she had given to him earlier, and he was confident in his ability to synthesize a new version of Cain's venom. It would be trial and error at first, finding out what worked and what didn't, and Talia felt her jaw tightening when she remembered Cain's trial and error, those early days of Bane and his mask, and so much _pain_, even for all that was kept at bay . . .

She breathed in deep, and reminded herself that it was only temporary, and soon all would be well again. They could move forward after they attacked this hurdle. They would survive. They would rise.

She was certain of it.

.

.

The first batch was the worst, as firsts tended to be.

Talia watched as her friend broke out into a cold sweat she could not sooth. He shook with his body's betrayal as his breath came thick and heavy in his lungs until she could not tell if it was from the pain under his mask or from the drug's side effects on his system.

Turkey was famous for its thermal baths; bodies of water fed from springs and natural hotspots in the land itself. The hotel she had bought out was made just for that purpose, to showcase the springs and their healing properties. She did not believe in folklore and superstition, but she appreciated the warmth of the water and their mineral properties, anything that would help her friend through the hell she and the doctor were putting him through with their search for an alternative venom.

She was able to get him back to the hotel before the gas in his mask started to take full effect, and helped him in to one of the blue pools. The thermal room was all buttery coloured stone, rough and smooth at turns. The lights in the room were low and warm, a very picture of peace and healing, even as Bane's voice echoed unnaturally, the sound thrown off of the stone and held by the water's presence. Talia stripped down to her underthings in order to help him into the water, hoping that the heat and the moisture would help him, even if ever just slightly as she kept on running a damp rag over the parts of his face his mask did not cover, stroking and touching whatever else she could in an attempt to comfort and sooth as his breathing came in hiccupped breaths, his muscles contracting and spasming beyond his control.

"I think that the doctor was more surprised by how tall you were than by your face itself. Did you see him as he looked up and up, my friend? I thought he would topple over," she tried to keep her voice light, amusement the only timbre in her tone as she ran her hands over his sweating muscles, trying to offer what little comfort she could. But it was a long night for them both; she neither sleeping when he was in such pain, and he unable to rest from his own body's betrayal.

The second batch was better with the nausea and his breathing, but it decreased control over his reflexes and muscles, leaving him twitching and spasming, helpless and pained as his body contracted and bent without his control or conscious command. Talia held him as best she could though that, grateful that she was there to help him through the worst of it. She remembered the temple in the mountains, those first days after he had worn the mask, how he not allowed her to help him stand when he had learned to walk again. She remembered how she had had to follow a step behind, her fingers made into fists until they cut into her flesh so as to avoid the impulse to help him up, to let him lean on her . . .

But then she had been nothing more than a child; and he a newly freed man. Now, years later and so much changed between them . . .

He was always so strong for her, she thought, closing her eyes. Perhaps, now, she could be the same for him . . . savior; protector and strong one. Their's was a symbiont circle, neither rising or falling without the other there to take place and lift up in return.

The spasms had left a lull, but still he was breathing heavy in their wake, his great lungs contracting and expanding shakily, as if he had to steal every breath he took. He did not speak of the pain; did nothing but nod yes or no when she asked her questions, taking her hourly notes and observations as Kerem had asked her to do. A part of her knew that the doctor had wished to be present for at least a part of this, but Talia had steadfastly refused. Bane's pain was her pain alone; it belonged to none else, and the doctor had not tried to ask again past that first time.

And so Talia tried to fill in the silence with her words; the same as Bane had done for her in the Pit when the days had grown too long, their despair too tangible. She told him of her travels from before she had found her father, of the more humorous anecdotes that Ubu had had to tell of the League and its workings, of the dozens upon dozens of myths and fairytales she had heard from spending so much time in so many different corners of the world.

"There is a story they tell here, of a youth who went looking for fear," she started in a near whisper, stroking his head around his mask and cradling him close to her, only their lower bodies submerged in the water around them. The steam was thick before them, her words cut through the fog like a knife. "The first he stumbled upon during his journeys were a circle of robbers, rejoicing in their spoils around the fire. The leader of the thieves asked the boy what he was doing there, and the boy said, 'I am looking for fear.' To which the robber said, 'You have found it, it is us.' But the boy was curious, for he felt no fear for the thieves. Astonished, the robber taunted him, and told him to go to the cemetery just over the hill and make for himself a loaf of helwa bread amongst the graves. While there, a body rose from its grave, and demanded of the youth his helwa. The youth denied the corpse his meal, and struck the body to return it to its slumber. When he returned, and told to the robbers his tale, they were astonished, for the boy had still found no fear, and thus they let him go."

Bane was still breathing heavy, she could feel his breath through the grating in his mask, striking her skin. Her touch became firmer, resting in the dip between his shoulder and his arm, her thumb finding the path of an old scar there and tracing.

"Onward the youth went, looking for fear. He came to a house, and upon entering the house he saw on a raised platform a swing in which there was a child weeping. Also in the room was a girl, running back and forth, distraught. The maiden approached him and said, 'Let me get upon your shoulders; the child is crying and I must quiet it.' He consented, and the girl climbed on his shoulders. While thus occupied with the child, she began gradually to press the youth's neck with her feet until he was in danger of strangulation. But he felt no fear for his own life, only a concern for the child.

"And so the boy continued on his journey. Upon reaching the coast, the boy saw a ship tossing to and fro out at sea, and heard fearful cries proceeding from it. He called out from the shore, 'Have you found fear?'. And the sailors answered with a cry, 'Oh, woe, we are sinking! Someone is casting our ship to and fro, and we are afraid.' The youth then bound a rope to his body, and dove to the bottom of the sea. There he discovered that the Daughter of the Sea was shaking the vessel. He fell upon her, and drove her away. Then, appearing at the surface, he asked, 'Is this fear?"' When no answer came, he continued on his way.

"Finally, he arrived at a spot where there was an immense crowd of people. 'What is the matter?' the youth inquired, and was informed that the Shah of the country was no more. A pigeon was to be set free, and he on whose head the bird should alight would be declared heir to the throne. The youth stood among the curious sightseers. The pigeon was loosed, wheeled about in the air, and eventually descended on the youth's head. He was at once hailed as Shah; but as he was unwilling to accept the privilege a second pigeon was sent up. This also rested on the youth's head. The same thing happened a third time. 'You are our Shah!' shouted the people. 'But I am seeking fear; I will not be your Shah,' replied he, resisting the efforts of the crowd to carry him off to the palace.

"His words were repeated to the widow of the late ruler, who said, 'Let him accept the dignity for tonight at least; tomorrow I will show him fear.' The youth consented, though he received the not very comforting intelligence that whoever was Shah one day was on the following morning a corpse. Passing through the palace, he came to a room in which he observed that his coffin was being made and water heated. Nevertheless, he lay down calmly to sleep in his chamber; but when the slaves departed he arose, took up the coffin, set it against the wall, lit a fire round it and reduced it to ashes. This done, he lay down again and slept soundly.

"When morning broke, slaves entered to carry away the new Shah's corpse; but they rejoiced at beholding him in perfect health, and hurried to the Sultana with the glad tidings. She thereupon called the cook and commanded, 'When you lay the supper tonight, put a live sparrow in the soup-dish.

"Evening came. The young Shah and the Sultana sat down to supper, and as the dish was brought in the Sultana said, 'Lift the lid of the dish.' Now as the youth stretched out his hand and lifted the lid, a bird flew out. The incident was so unexpected that it gave him a momentary shock of fear. 'Do you see?!' cried the Sultana. 'That is fear.' The youth had indeed been afraid. After having found fear and rising above it, the youth agreed to stay in the land as Shah, later taking the Sultana as his beloved wife."

She paused, her story coming to a close as she reached over to wet one of the rags in a basin of cold water she kept by the lip of the pool. Wringing it out, she then dabbed at her friend's brow with it, the sensation of the cool next to the warm water around them a small relief to the tempest inside of his bones.

"You have faced fierce storms, pains unnumbered, and the twisted barbs of dead men . . . You have lived when it was declared that you should die, time and time again . . . Now, the end of you will not come from a bird in a soup bowl. I won't let it, Baldassare. _I won't_."

She ran the rag underneath the straps of his mask, wishing she could do more to sooth the scars underneath, when he reached up and covered her hand with his own. His touch was weak, but it was there, just as it always would be.

She raised his hand to her mouth, and kissed it, squeezing his fingers between her own, hoping that the sensation was stronger than his pain, that it would help him be stronger than his agony, the mortal limitations of his body . . .

There was silence between them after that, and another night went and passed away.

.

.

It took to the end of the fifth week for Kerem to synthesize a formula that would work as well as Cain's.

Talia was fond of Kerem, but by the seventh serum (which had brought with it severe nausea and vomiting – an absolute mess with the mask and the pain in her friend's face), she had been ready to remove from the doctor a limb in order to impose on him the seriousness of his work. Thankfully, the man seemed to work even quicker in the shadow of his own failure – guilt and concern pressing in on his shoulders more than any other impetus she could have given him, just as Ubu had said he would.

Without a doubt, the man would have been crushed underneath the weight of the League, but when Bane breathed freely for first one hour and then two, she had such a hope in her breast. A hope that maybe, _just maybe_, this was the one . . .

The rest of the day passed with no symptoms to the adverse, and Bane was even wanting to get up and move with the freedom granted to him by the cooling fires on his face. The serum was minty, almost, he had said when explaining how he felt to her, as if amused by a joke that was past her ability to understand. She had such a smile on her face then, relief a cautious thing within her as she hoped beyond hope that they had finally found the one.

In the late hours, when she was too alert to try to sleep, she broke away from his side for the first since they had started their trials with the drug. When he didn't follow her, she suspected that he was cleaning up one of the glass mirrors he had broken during a particularly lethal bout that was their fourth attempt. She had told him to leave it be when he had come to his senses enough to register the damage he had wrought - the hotel was already going to have to repair the wall in that room, and replace a vase or two. One he had broken when stumbling, and one the other she had thrown against the wall in a fit with frustration after a particularly terse phone call with Kerem. The second time she had passed the broken wall, she had had half a black smile on her face as she imagined the hotel staff trying to figure out how a mere man had wrecked such carnage with nothing but his fists. The damage meant nothing to her personally, and if it helped with even the barest of his symptoms, she would have let him tear the resort down brick by brick.

But the building was left standing around them, and Bane was breathing freely again. So, Talia put aside her thoughts and slipped down the empty halls for one of the thermal rooms on her own, clad in nothing but one of the hotel robes, with a towel draped over her arms. It was a selfish indulgence, but a treat she was loathe to pass up after the strain of the last few weeks. One did not pass through Turkey without enjoying the bathes as they were meant to be enjoyed, and she had not had a chance to truly savor them while helping her friend through his ordeal.

The water was scalding when she put a toe in, testing the water as she stood gingerly on the highest step of the pool, like a child uncertain of the tide. But the warmth was rippling and inviting, and without hesitating again, she shed her robe and stepped lithely into the hot water. Steam billowed on the air, making the room shimmer before her as if it were something out of a dream. The sensations of the bubbling water against her skin was delicious, and the mineral clean scent of the water refreshed the air in her lungs, giving her a peace she felt down to her bones as she submerged her entire body, her hair turning to a wet curtain as she emerged, pushing it back from her ears in order wipe the water from her eyes. She smiled as the water traveled in thin rivulets down her skin, understanding now why so many believed the pools to have healing properties associated with them as her body turned liquid in the pool's embrace.

In the end, she felt his presence before she saw him. The fine hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention as she tilted her to the side, her hands rising to wring the water from the thick mass of her hair. She smiled coyly into the fog and asked, "Are you now done assuaging your guilt, my friend?" her voice teased as she shaped her question. In reply she heard a snorted breath through his mask.

"I can assure you, I was doing nothing of the sort," Bane spoke into the warm air. A smile stretched across her lips as she cut through the water like a blade, coming to the stone steps that descended into the pool. Bane was crouched down on the ledge before her, his chest bare in response to the moisture in the room, even though he was clothed elsewise. She followed a drop of sweat on his chest as it caught on the upraised skin of a scar, caught like a cradle before finishing its descent.

"I do not know if I believe you," she smirked up at him as she spoke, rising out of the water so that she could fold her arms on the ledge next to him. She watched with some satisfaction as his eyes fell from her face in order to take in the wet fall of her hair over her shoulders, the play of the water on her skin as it fell down her body to rejoin the pool below. Modesty had never been an issue or a thought between them over the years, since the Pit and then after. Skin was skin, and it had never been a qualm or covered thing between them. But there was a wider cast to his eyes now. She could hear him suck in a breath through his mask.

"You are enjoying yourself?" he asked then, avoiding her accusation. She could imagine the right side of his mouth turn up beneath his mask.

"Very much so," she said, tilting her head to the side. "Local legend says that these are the very waters that Agamemnon's men were led to by the oracle in order to clean their wounds from battle. I can't say that I don't believe them after experiencing them for myself."

Bane snorted at her words. "My Greek tragedies are fuzzy, but wasn't Agamemnon later slain by his wife in his own bath after returning from war?"

Talia shrugged. Her smile was sharp. "I'm sure they don't print that in the tourist's brochures. Most do not have our ease with blood and water."

His laughter was a wet sound on the air, hissed out as it was through his mask. Her eyes fell to the grating that covered his mouth then, the tangle of metal and rubber tubes. For a moment she let herself remember what his smile had looked like, back in the Pit, when he still had a mouth left to smile with. She had been young then, and a smile in that time had simply meant that all was right in the world. Now, with age and understanding, she wished that she had pulled his smile away before it was taken from her. She wished that she had held it in her hands; learned its weight and shape so that when it was broken she would know it's arch and curve and line . . . she wished she could restore it to him.

"I remember what your smile looked like," she whispered softly when the silence between them stretched. She lifted herself out of the water completely in order to sit on the ledge next to him, scooting forward so that her calves and feet were still dangling into the water. Goose-flesh broke out over her arms at the contrast of the cool air and the warm water.

"Did I smile often then?" he asked in return, curious, his eyes tracing over bare skin before turning up again, locking on her face.

Her own mouth quirked up, the corners lifting like wings uncertain of flight. "At times, although I cannot tell as well now. Sometimes when your eyes show mirth, it is not always for amusement's sake."

"I could say the same of you, my dear. You smiled more then . . ." Gently, he reached over to trace a single finger over the shape her mouth made. His thumb hooked on her lower lip, a kiss of touch where his mouth could not.

"I smile now," she countered, breathing in and tasting his skin.

"Yes, you smile now," he repeated.

And she was smiling as she leaned over in order to kiss the tubes of his mask, the grating. She breathed, and tasted the cool sensation of the gas in his mouth. The metal was iron tasting and cold to the touch, but his hands fell to anchor himself high on her arms, keeping her there. The weight of his hands was tight, bruising. He was not unaffected by the meaning behind her motions.

She moved her mouth down to find the soft skin under the straps of his mask, and still his hold did not lessen on her. Even after the many such interludes they had shared since leaving the mountains – touch a tangible way to ease his pain in the weeks finding a replacement for his mask, and before that, in Lahore, a fumbling, curious thing - desire was still as fledgling as it was potent as they learned each other in a way new to them until now . . .

He could not kiss her, and she would not ask him to. She did not want him to bear pain in an act where pain should be the thing farthest from. And so where he could not, she covered his moisture slick flesh with her mouth, mapping out its dips and planes as he found her skin with her hands, proving that a mouth was not needed in order to find pleasure and warmth, just intention and devotion, and she quivered and ached in the deepest parts of her, the emotion filling her rising with the pleasure until it was something effervescent in her veins.

They were creatures of battle, born and bred in pain. She knew where to place pressure on a man's neck for it to snap; knew which vertebra to hit between in order to render the spine useless. She knew how much weight it took for skin to break; knew just how truly fragile the paper tissue of hearts and lungs were. She knew how warm blood was when spilled . . . And now she turned the information aside in order to find the spots on his neck that make him shiver, the warm places on his skin that brought pleasure rather than pain, his body flushing as blood again rose to the surface of his skin, but not with the intention to spill . . . It was a more powerful moment for that, rather than the fleetingness of the pleasure itself, the knowledge that she could be more than a weapon, more than a scar . . . She could bring pleasure and know the same in return, and for a moment she felt humbled under that weight, that gift. She felt _whole_.

It was an old dance, one their bodies knew first before their minds; but it was still new between the two of them. Even still, the tide of it was heady and intoxicating, and she could only think that this was _right_. A determination steeled in her bones then. She would not let him push her away this time.

And sure enough, she could see the arguments in his eyes, the concern battling with the want, and oh, but the _want_ that was there . . . It was dark and it was smouldering, a haze of some fierce emotion – stronger than the pain in his body or the debt of his servitude. It was primal, all a priest at worship to some goddess of old, blood and flesh the only sacrifices possible to approach that which was celestial, that which was sacred . . .

It was that look, more than anything else, that sealed her decision, that turned her touch demanding and her gaze entreating. "Please," was all she breathed, leaning in close to share the breath from his mask, the intimacy the closest she could get with his mouth closed from her, and she watched as his eyes closed, as if in pain . . .

"Please," she beckoned, and like the tides following the control of the moon, he leaned forward to shadow her. His hands on her body turned insistent and fierce, a line crossed, a bridge burned, but she had no need for gentleness, not now, not here . . .

It was the last thing she said for a long time that night, nothing left to her but the healing waters and the mist all around them. And Bane, only Bane, as the cold flame at the core of her flared into life and _burned_ . . . and he burned with her.

.

.

They spent only two weeks more in Izmir, just long enough to make sure that the venom in Bane's mask was indeed working, and that there would be no relapse in symptoms or dilution of the drug's effectiveness. In parting, Talia gave Kerem a semi-permanent address that he could reach her by – her alias' land holdings in Antalya in southwestern Turkey. Before they left, Kerem offered to show her just what her investment would purchase, but she declined, not wanting to attach herself in any way when not needed, and she had left their meeting place in the park without looking back. Kerem had served a purpose, and his kindness had been useful when needed, but now he was nothing more than a pawn on the board – something to protect and guard, useful for the time to come, but nothing more.

Even so, she would miss Izmir, if not for the overwhelming beauty of the city and the warmth of it's inhabitants, then for the memories it held. Of trust and beginnings and hands to skin and lips to throat and _completion_.

She shivered, though the day was warm, pleasantly distracted – as she often found herself of late. That too would be something to bottle – to chain up as hers and hers alone and put aside as they started down their path once more. But, for now, the memories were new and warm against her mind, and she could not yet give them up.

When they were ready to leave, they went by air this time. During that last week, Talia bought out a smaller company of planes, much as her father had done when securing methods of moving quickly across the world for the League and the work they did. She had been taught the basics of piloting even before she had been taught to drive a car, and now they would be able to get from place to place well enough, one way or the other.

While Izmir was a place of healing and bonding for them, Antalya was a place of planning.

They had carefully not discussed the future while in Izmir, instead focusing on the present and the challenges that lied therein. But now the world was new before them, and Talia could feel a familiar restlessness come over her – the same that had plagued her in those years before she had found her father; the same that would come upon her when she went too long between missions while under her father's mantle.

To that end, Talia's alias owned a small swath of land at the base of the green Beydağlari mountains, nestled in the rock and the thick foliage of the land around them, with the sea as its natural barrier to the south. The land already had an estate built on it's grounds, large and sprawling, all stone and rich wood and earthy tones of paint on the walls and in the fixtures. At the time when Talia had developed her Ilke alias, she had wished to present the land to her father as a possible safehouse and secondary location for the League and its works – it had everything they could have needed. Past the main building there were smaller buildings for housing, and a cottage for the caretaker – an older mute woman, along with her two grown sons and the one's wife - who attended to the property, hired out of the same village that Ubu and his brethren were trained and bred, all fiercely loyal and well paid at that. There were training halls and a dojo both, and faculties aplenty to feed and provide for any who lived there.

It was enough like the monastery in the mountains to feel like a place where they could start again, and different enough to feel like something that was just their's, all their own.

"Roomy," had been Bane's first observation upon arriving, and Talia had rolled her eyes at him as the elder son showed them around. Talia had only seen the estate in picture during its planning stages, and so now she searched as Bane did – seeing the highs and lows of the land around them, the corners to defend and the ins and outs that would prove useful in the worst case scenarios – of which it always seemed prudent to plan for, as they always seemed to happen more often than not.

More interesting than the estate itself was the land around it, Talia thought as she looked over a map that outlined the caverns and paths through the mountains and forests around them. Antalya was a haven for the tourists and the running of the country both; with the beautiful operating right alongside the functional. They were close to the sea here, as well as the railways and airways that would connect them to the rest of the world, all while being secluded enough to hide them from the eyes of the populace right beyond.

It was perfect.

That first night, Talia had thrown her few things down in the master suite of the main building, before taking the comforter and everything else off of the large king size bed and placing it on the floor until she had a nest of pillows and blankets all without a mattress. The room had a wall full of windows, and even a part of the ceiling was glass, giving them a view of the stars above, the mountains beyond. The parts of the room that were not glass were thick wooden beams on the ceiling and panels on the walls, giving the room a natural look even past the sheets of glass. Over the years, she still had not come to completely like sleeping indoors, and this was the best she could do to find a middle ground between the two extremes.

Bane watched her as she settled herself in, his eyes soft as if bemused. She could imagine the smile he wore behind his mask, and her own stretched full on her face where his could not as she raised a brow, daring him to say anything about her choice of accommodations.

He said nothing, and instead turned to ready for the night in silence while Talia spread out over her nest of blankets, moving to fish through a mess of charts and maps and news clippings that she had been studying during their last few days in Izmir.

She stopped her work for the night only to help him when he went to take off his mask in order to attend to his personal needs. She helped set the line into his veins, and delivered the local shot of medicine into the thick cord of muscles in his neck. Once that was done, he washed the oozing and lazily bleeding scars of his face quickly and emotionlessly before turning from her in order to brush his teeth and gulp down a protein shake and his other supplements while Talia brought out the lighter mask he used to sleep in. He did not need her help with such a thing – he had not ever needed her help, or asked for it – but she was finally close enough to him to actually give her aid, and the routine had become a daily one between them in Izmir. She was not yet ready to give that up.

When he finished, his breath was already rough in his lungs from the pain – even with the precautions they had taken. Any time without the mask pained him in some way, she knew, even though he insisted that it was bearable. He would always say as much, and so Talia took to ignoring him more often than not, instead watching his eyes and his breathing, the body more telling than anything else. She knew their time was up, but she still stole a moment in order to run her thumb and first finger fondly over the scars on his face, leaning forward to kiss his mangled mouth only once before helping him secure his mask once more. The lines clicked into place with a hiss, and Bane breathed in deeply, his large lungs contracting with the effort to move the venom into his body more quickly. Talia watched him, trying to keep her thoughts off of her face, but she was, as always, an open book before him, and he reached over to squeeze her hand, as if it was she who needed the comfort rather than him. She smiled sadly in return before she leaned in to kiss the thick strap of his mask to the right of his face, wishing the scars beneath could feel her touch and know warmth.

He squeezed her hand one last time before rising, and she did as well. For that moment, it was enough.

When he exited the bathroom, he stopped for a moment to look down in amusement at the maps spread out of the side of the 'bed', as if she were a magpie unable to pass up a pretty bauble. "You have given thought to your next move, then?" he questioned simply, the first time he had asked as much since they had fled the mountains those weeks ago.

And she bit her lip, and nodded her answer, strangely nervous as she stepped before him to propose their future – though she knew that she should not. He would follow her always, to the very end, if asked, and she had only but to say the words . . .

And so she said, "I do not want to give up my father's work," she spoke slowly, each word falling from her mouth as if she spoke around a mouthfull of glass. "While . . . while he and I may have come to quarrel . . . I still believe in the Shadow's necessity, I still believe in the work he did . . . and I do not wish to give that up."

Bane nodded once, acceptance already in his gaze. Most likely, he had already expected this from her – perhaps even before she had figured it out for herself. "Are you sure?" still he took to tease. "You do not wish to become a painter? An actress perhaps?"

"Well," she drawled, her eyes sparkling with mischief, "our traveling song and dance number did cross my mind for a time, but ultimately I decided against it."

He nodded. "You wish to start a fire, then?"

"I wish to see it rise," she corrected. "I cannot yet let that go."

And he looked at her, long and slow, his eyes weighing before he inclined his head. "Then we recruit," he said simply, the decision already made. His voice turned to a chuckle in the back of his throat. She could hear as it slipped out through his mask. "I take it you already have a list of targets in mind?"

"One or two," Talia replied, her grin sharp as she fell upon their nest of blankets. She rolled over on her stomach, reaching for the map nearest to her, the notes and plans she had already been making . . .

"Now my friend, if you agree, I would start with a particularly unsavory man in Aleppo who has had the misfortune to catch my attention . . ."

* * *

**Parting Notes:**

**Anarkali's Tale**: Is true. Well, at least, it is a story that is told in that area of the world, and there is a mausoleum built in her honor much as I described it here, inscriptions and all. There is much debate over whose resting place that really is, and whether or not the entire tale happened as a whole, but I liked the romanticism of the myth, and decided to steal it for all of its parallels with our characters. You can read more about her here, if you are interested: wikipedia .org (slash) wiki (slash) Anarkali

**Talia's Alias**: Ilke means 'torch/bright light', while Çelik means 'steel'. I pieced it together from a website with Turkish names, and thought it a fitting alias for her.

**Kerem Yilmaz**: Kerem means 'he who does benevolent work' or 'generosity, nobility and honor', while Yilmaz means 'dauntless'. I'm a name geek when naming OC's, so I had to share. :)

**The Fear Fairytale**: Is indeed a real legend. You can read the original at sacred-texts_com in the Turkish fairytales section. FFN won't let me put in the whole link, even with spaces, so I'm afraid that is as far as I can direct you. To anyone who knows me from my _Thor _stories, you know I'm a myth junkie, and that website is one of my favorites online sources for all sorts of things. You can thank me later. ;)

**Side Note I**: I once again wanted to mention that I am telling stories of places I have never been to, and while I try to do my research, there are always going to be gaps. I apologize in advance for any glaring ones, and I welcome anyone who has a better understanding than me to point out flaws by way of PM.

**Side Note II**: Just how many chapters does this have left, you may wonder, seeing as how I keep on changing my mind? We are not looking at eight or nine chapters, and then it will be a wrap. Five chapters, I said in the beginning . . . pfft, who did my muse think she was kidding?

That said, I hope that you enjoyed, and I shall see you all next time!


	6. before the shield

**Author's Note: **And here we are, at long last . . . To those keeping track of this story's progress in my profile, I am sorry for all of the continuing delays! Everytime I thought I had my writing scedule narrowed down, life did not cooperate with me. But, here we are with another long chapter, and I hope that it was worth the wait. :)

* * *

**VI: "before the shield"**

Aleppo came and went; as did the terrorist cell in Kirkurk, and the assassination of an arms dealer in Halabja.

Only three months had passed since setting out from Antalya, and Talia deemed their small band of followers ready for their most ambitious task yet - staging a political coup in Tehran in order to overthrow a corrupt portion of the government. Already, they had seven men who had sworn themselves to their way and their cause, and two dozen more who would serve as a grunt workforce for their endeavor. It was a small number to work with, but Talia had seen her father do more with even less. It was with some dark pleasure that she used many of the footholds in the world that the League itself had carved in order to make its way unseen through the shadows - coordinating and plotting and watching as the pieces fell into place like pawns across a chessboard.

The mission was carried off without a hitch, with only one of their new recruits taking a bullet to the shoulder as collateral damage. She could hear her men celebrating with wine in the rooms below, their voices mingling and rising in the joy of triumph and a job successfully done. The seven recruits she would take with her had been instructed to stay clear of the spirits in order to deal with the excess baggage that would not be leaving Tehran with them – but that would be later in the evening.

For now, the sun was setting, and Talia had no wish to mingle with the others below. She stood on the balcony of her self declared 'room', looking off at the mountains in the distance. The air was chilled, but she could not find it within herself to go back inside and fetch her coat. Underneath the thin layer of cotton she wore, she could feel gooseflesh break out on her skin, rising towards the breath of frost in the air. It would snow soon, she knew. Perhaps, in the mountains, it was snowing already.

Something uncomfortable seized about her throat. Like a fist.

Tehran had been a bold move of her, she knew – brazen almost. Before her departure, she had known that her father had planned to set the Seven Hand on Iran's capital for some time – perhaps they were even now in this very city, her father and his faithful. If they were anywhere in reach, then they kept to the shadows even as Talia stole their goal from them – breaking off upon seeing that she and Bane moved to stage the coup before they could set their own events in motion.

When asked about her motives for the strike on Tehran, Talia had squared her jaw and not answered – ignoring the cold lack of feeling in Bane's eyes at the silence from her (for she would not lie, not to him). Normally so expressive to her, he had been still in the wake of her silence before reporting that their men were ready for whatever course she deemed the right one.

He would not hold her from what she needed to do, even when he disapproved, and that knowledge weighed on her. It weighed like the bite of the wind in the air, blowing at the sand toned city around her.

Talia exhaled at the memory, her breath a puff of vapor on he air as she turned her eyes from her memories to the city itself. Smoke rose in the distance – their handiwork, but she saw only the mountains beyond. There were stormclouds over the peaks. It would reach the city soon.

There was a soft movement of noise behind her – the glass doors to the balcony sliding open and then closing again. A shadow touched her own.

She tilted her head, and heard silence below her. The wine had been stilled for blood, then. Odd, she reflected, wondering when the hour had passed her notice.

"It is done then?" she asked, not turning to face the other. The mountains would not let her gaze go.

"It is done," Bane said quietly.

She nodded, crossing her arms over her chest. But the heat from her body was thin, and the motion did little to warm her as she rubbed her thumbs against her skin.

A moment passed, the silence lingering, and then she felt a warmth fall over her shoulders. The softness of sheep's wool and the weight of thick brown leather registered to her senses. The goosebumps on her arms faded, the coat already warm from the heat of his body. It smelled faintly of him, she reflected – shadow cool stone and rain, with that underlying synthetic scent that was the wisp of the venom from his mask, all metal and gas.

"I am not cold," she said after a heartbeat. Her fingers curled in the wool on the underside of the coat, wrapping it tighter about her body.

Bane said nothing – he just rested his heavy hands against her shoulders, the weight of his touch seemingly keeping her body steady against the ground - unable to rise and join smoke and storm and the snowcapped peaks far beyond . . . Talia inhaled deeply of the cold air, and stepped back into him, defeated.

In the distance, smoke continued to rise. The storm could not yet touch it.

.

.

They pushed to the northeast then, into Armenia. The mountainous country was beautiful and dangerous, peppered with small villages and hardy people who did their best to carve out a place for themselves in the post Soviet economy. The country was like smoking kindle, trying desperately to spark to flame. While Armenia had cordial relations with bordering Georgia and Iran, they had a more strained relationship with neighboring Azerbaijan. Even though peace had been officially declared a few years prior, the scars that the country bore from those battles were still as fresh as the feelings and the underlying causes that had sparked the feuds initially.

In response to the country's struggling economy, the government had sold vast areas of lands to out of country mining companies – all of which who were eager to exploit lands that were rich in copper and gold. But, for all of the financial boons the sales granted, there was a downside to the continued rape of the land. There was grief in the cold way that the powers refused to consider the villages that already sat over the rich and fertile ground that was auctioned away to the highest bidder. When Talia had first interviewed men from this area of the world on behalf of her father, she had been regaled with tales of infected crops and displaced families – who even had to dig up their cemeteries, where the bones of their families had sat for generations – in order to make way for the large machines of industry. The forests bore their scars from the massive open pits, and the rivers stank with tailing dams and retainer ponds for the tail minerals. Nearly sixty percent of Armenia's agricultural endeavors – the true life's blood of the poor Armenian – was corrupted by both mercury arsenic and cadmium, infecting the crops and the people who tended to them.

While Talia was not naïve enough to believe that the country would ever be completely free of its mines – and acknowledged the great aid it gave the struggling economy (making nearly fifteen percent of its capital), she did, however, believe that the mines would be better benefited in the hands of Armenia's own people. With the village heads having a say in the mine's location and running, the scarring to the land would be reduced, and the profit would wholly lie within Armenia's hands, thus aiding the country more than any foreign taskmaster ever could.

The plight of the country had long been on the table of the League of Shadows, but always had it been pushed away in favor of larger and more pressing matters. Her father had been the one to engineer the cease-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan years ago, and that task done, the country had been left much to its own devices.

Simply put, Talia had not the men nor the means to strike on the level of her father – not yet. And so, she considered this to be the perfect way to test their strength, and garner more of it.

She spent weeks outlying her plans with Bane from the country's capitol of Yerevan. On the bank of the Hrazdan river, she bought out what used to be an old textile factory. On the lower levels her men camped out and trained and waited for her orders, while Talia kept mostly to the upper offices, rarely leaving her maps and plans unless it was to journey further south into the country to the mines she had hoped to target.

To their original seven men, they had added eight more on their journey north into the country. The land around them was thick with weapon-trained men looking for a true purpose and calling as much as it was filled with those godless and without claim on conscious or country.

They were at fifteen men now, where Talia's plans would call for at least thirty – and that was where Bane came in.

Talia was a tactician. She could weave together charts and graphs and maps with the intangible factors of human weaknesses - human desires, human hearts. She was born to plot and bring a plan to its whole. Bane was like her father - a fisher of men. A born orator, he could talk a group of men into a zealous frenzy with nothing more than the passion in his voice. Talia could ensnare and seduce in small numbers, in dark corners - where a turn of her wrist and the tilt of her head spoke as loudly as words. Bane, though - Bane could cater to the masses. He could_ lead_.

And so, Talia fell into the background while Bane became the figurehead for their new force – and already word was spreading of the masked mercenary and his cause. His plight. His cares.

And steadily, they stood poised to grow.

While their query was in Kajaran – a city in Syunik in the south of the country, Yerevan was ripe for the gleaning when it came to both men and arms. While Talia planned and waged her own personal war on the board members of MINETEC (a German mining corporation who owned shares in an upwards of sixty percent of the country's mines) in the city's highest circles, Bane slipped through the shadows and the mire, and gleaned from the droppings of the harvest gems waiting for polish and use.

Talia stood still in her office, peeking through the off-white blinds to where the new men were milling below – a good twenty having followed Bane from the speech he had just given in the back of one of the working class taverns. They were a mixture of peoples and tongues – while the bulk of the group was Armenian, she heard a pair of the men with Russian on their lips, and a few were of Kurdish descent. A few more spoke with voices twinged with accents from the east of Europe – leftover from the more violent times in the country's past, no doubt.

"Not bad, my friend," she said to Bane, who was sitting on the corner of her desk, his large hands restless as he twined and braided a piece of string in his hands. "I spy twenty new men? That was double our goal."

"Twenty-three, to be exact," Bane shrugged, a massive rolling of his shoulders. "Perhaps five will be ready to return with us at the mission's end. If they survive."

"If they survive," Talia echoed, feeling pooling low in her stomach at the words. The men were pawns on a chessboard to her, and she felt not at their fate. She frowned, and looked down on the men again.

While many of the recruits were milling about – all getting to know their new comrades and chatting amicably enough, one to the other, there was one man sitting off to the side. He had found a hard-backed folding chair to sit in, and his feet were propped up comfortably on one of the long tables where they kept supplies and arms. In his hands was a book, old and careworn.

Talia let the blinds fall closed. She tilted her head, wondering.

Bane had followed her eyes. "A _'Tale of Two Cities'_," he indulged her curiosity.

Talia raised a brow. "Heavy reading for a . . ."

"Sniper," Bane answered for her, leaning over her desk in order to push a file her way.

Tilting her head, Talia took the file from him, but not before noting the blood that coated her friend's knuckles, unseen until then. "I thought that the meeting went without a hitch?" she questioned.

"It did," Bane responded amicably.

"Ah," she said. "Then, I take it that none of this is yours?" There was a furthering of the spatters on the collar of his coat, on the broad expanse of his chest, blending in with the sturdy brown fabric - but still there to see for one who looked closely enough.

Bane shook his head, there was humor in his eyes. If he wore not of his mask, she knew she would be able to hear a whisper of a laugh on his lips. "None," he affirmed. "A man dubious of my words wished to see behind my mask . . . He was most persistent."

"He is dead then?" Talia asked. The hand that was not holding the file fisted.

"Not by my hand," Bane answered, nodding to the file she held. "He has quite the eye, it would seem – he did not look up from his novel once when I spoke, and I did not see him look up to make the shot, either. Originally, I did not think our cause reverberated with him at all." There was curiosity in his voice. Her friend was intrigued.

"A sniper," Talia mused as she thumbed open the file, interested. "Ivan Barsad," she read aloud – taking in the thin face and long nose, the deep set eyes. He had the look of a Judas about him, a part of her reflected, but his eyes . . . No, it would not be so, she thought.

"Born to a Russian father and an Armenian mother," Bane continued conversationally, "He made his mark in the Nagorno-Karabakh war – and was dishonorably discharged for disputes with his superior officer. A dispute which he was in the right of, may I add, but such things matter not in the end."

The same war her father had engineered a cease-fire to those years ago, Talia mused - the weaving of time, of action and reaction, falling curiously before her.

She closed the file, her head tilted as she considered. "Well, on the morrow you can start working with them. We have enough men to move forward now."

Bane inclined his head, his eyes moving past her to the men unseen below – already his mind was turning, and she felt a spark of warmth in her chest at the sight of it, feeling his zeal tug and pull on the strands of her own drive, her own will.

"Let us put the pieces in place, then," Talia announced, slipping behind her desk to review the stack of files that Bane had brought for her, and they stayed that way through much of the evening, until long after the sun fell behind the mountains beyond.

.

.

Two weeks had passed, and already their small group was starting to fall into a seamless engine under Bane's teaching and direction. In the time that Bane spent training their recruits, Talia submersed herself in the role of Ada Yanikian – a wealthy woman concerned for Armenia's future, who was 'diplomatically' trying to buy possession of the mines for the Armenian people. She had with her delegates from the southern providences where the mines were in force, though she kept them in the dark about her true plans – not wanting their good intentions soiled by what had to be done through less than legal means. While she was content being both match and flame, it would not do for country's first steps forward to be built on such things.

Heat rose, but she would not let them near the fire.

And so she returned late one evening, her grey evening gown soaked with wine and stinking of alcohol when she flung her coat and purse to the side – both landing amongst her charts and her plans, knocking a silver blade (which she had skewered into the wood earlier that day in a fit of frustration) to clatter on the floor below. She winced at the discordant sound.

Bane, who had been following a step behind her, leaned over to pick up the blade from where it had fallen. He flipped the knife in his hand, drawing her gaze as the steel flashed between his fingers. He did not bother to straighten her papers as she reached up to undo the pins which held her hair. She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth, taking away the color that had lain thickly there. When she ran her tongue over her lips, she tasted wax, but at least she was starting to look like herself again.

She kicked off her heels as she walked, her ire bright in her eyes as she fell down to her true height. The shoes found a home in some dark corner, thudding off of a wall before coming to a rest. She nodded her head sharply, satisfied at the sound.

Bane regarded her with amusement in his eyes, but he wisely held his tongue. She glared at him witheringly.

"They did not agree," was all she said in a clipped tone, setting her jaw as she wiped the lipstick on the back of her hand on her dress instead – the gown already ruined for the evening.

"As we expected," Bane said calmly.

With an annoyed exhale, Talia felt at the skin of her cheeks, where cosmetics still choked her flesh. She would have to shower before she felt like herself again, she knew. When she caught Bane's eyes on the rather large stain decorating the front of her dress, she flipped her head in annoyance. "One of MINETEC's board-members 'accidentally' spilled his wine on my gown," she answered his unspoken question.

"Ah," he said. The amusement in his eyes grew, but behind it there was a shadow. If his hands weren't already occupied with the blade, she imagined that they would fist.

She smirked, pleased. Her grin turned sharp. "I care not about the dress," she said. "And I was sure to see that a waiter 'slipped' and poured a whole bottle in Kajik's lap later in the evening. He received as he gave – as he will continue to do so."

An amused sound made it through Bane's mask, what would have been a snort of laughter from the lips of any other. "I would have preferred your usual method of skewering his hand to the table with a fork rather than such subterfuge," he said good naturedly.

Talia showed her teeth. "I do so hate to be predictable though," her voice slithered. "And I believe he mourned the silk thread of his wardrobe more than he would have grieved over the use of a hand, idle as they are," her tone turned in disgust. "It was sickening," she breathed through her teeth, an old frustration rising in her – even older than the mantras and morals of the League. A waste of food and finery, the overindulgence so enjoyed by the uppercrust never failed to bring bile to the back of her throat. When growing, her greatest treasure had been days when she could eat a half spoiled apple, a sip of water more decadent than any vintage of wine. The shameless parade of wealth by those that had too much was the quickest way to ignite her ire. When the coin that built such dragon's hordes for the well to do was taken from those who had little sealed the hatred in her heart, the cold flame at the core of her, ever burning.

Bane watched this all go through her eyes, a mountain beneath the cruel winds of her storm. "We are ready then?" he asked.

Talia nodded. "The stage is set."

"We begin at dawn," Bane said, rising to his feet with an ease that bellied his great size. "I shall inform the men."

She nodded, moving behind her desk to sink wearily down into her chair. The expensive fabric of her dress ruffled as she moved. It itched against her skin. The product holding the elaborate coif of her hair into place was displeasing to her nose. When she moved to rub her fingers against her temples, she could feel the manicured edge of her nails – where she had had to train herself out of her childhood habit of chewing her nails down into nothing. It did naught for the part she had to play.

The part they all played.

She closed her eyes, hoping that the blackness would aid the ache that had settled behind her eyes. She inhaled once; she let her breath out slow.

Beyond her, she heard the sound of retreating footsteps, and she thought that Bane had taken her leave of her. Instead, a moment later, she felt strong hands at her shoulders, touching the skin left bare by the dip of her gown.

"You hold yourself too tightly," he remarked easily, as if commenting on the weather. His strong hands kneaded her tired muscles, finding the kinks that days of being bent over her desk had caused, massaging away the weight that had fallen on her shoulders the last few months.

"How can I not?" she asked, her voice humming alongside a contented noise in the back of her throat. "Tomorrow . . ." Tomorrow her men would march and die on her orders, and while she cared not for the individual, she did so for the whole. She feared failure, she feared not being able to accomplish what she had set out to do . . . Her father was always waiting to laugh in the back of her mind - where she fancied that her own fire was naught but a candle's burn to the star-like inferno of Ra's great empire.

She feared failure – it was her oldest fear, the fear of leaping without her fingers stretching far enough to catch the ledge and pull herself to freedom. While logic told her that that fear was what made her soar – made her do what others could not - it still swirled sickly in her bones. It still pooled like venom in her lungs.

She leaned her head back so that she could rest against the support that her friend offered. Wind and wings, current and ocean waters, sword and shield; this and a dozen more things she thought in that moment, but could not say them as she felt the easy rise and fall of his chest – as easy as if he were settling down to read a good book rather than marching on those great in might upon the morning hour.

"You will succeed," he said gently, saying nothing more than that when nothing more needed be said. She said nothing of her fears – her innermost doubts and worries, but he picked them up from the pages of her skin nonetheless, and answered the unspoken. She felt a warm feeling bloom in her chest then, more than gratitude, both heavy and light at once, always so much greater than her fear – her inner doubts and demons and cold flames.

His touch was almost painful in its intensity, but she leaned into him nonetheless, taking the strength he would give as her own, like a pallor-born creature feeding on the lifeblood of one living.

She reached up to cover his hands with her own, knowing that she returned that strength – inspired it tenfold in him, just as he did so sustain her. "_We_ will succeed," she corrected, feeling – _belief_ – thick in her voice as she spoke.

"That we will," Bane agreed, his voice a low rumble from his mask. Talia closed her eyes then, content and ready for the morning to rush to meet them.

.

.

The next day dawned cloudless and clear.

The sun peeked out from behind the horizon as their convoy made its way south to Kajaran. At the eastern border of the Zangezur mountains laid one of the largest molybdenum-copper mines in the country. The massive open pit mine spanned the length of a small lake, sinking down tier after tier into the earth to reclaim the bounty she bore beneath her surface. Just to the north of the mines, connected by the haul roads, laid the dual tailing dam and smelting plant, where they refined the ore right on site before shipping it out. Just north of the dam, on the river itself, there was a hydroelectric plant that provided energy to the mine, the plant, and a great deal of the surrounding area – Armenia having no natural fuel supplies past that which they imported into the country.

Their plan would be three fold. One contingent of men would be sent to handle the destruction of the electric plant, where Talia already had contacts within willing to aid them for the country's better good. A second group, under Bane's direction, was on their way to shut down the tailing dam and the smelting plant – the end result of their work would hopefully flooding the copper mine itself, where Talia and their third division of men were tasked with destroying the shaft mines that tunneled down deeper than the open pit – operating with closed walls techniques underneath the surface of the ground. The destruction wrought there would thus ensure that even if the flood could be drained from the pit, then there would be nothing left of the mines beneath worth saving – not without more time and effort – and money – than MINETEC would be willing to pay.

As soon as her feet hit the ground outside of the truck – where they had blended into the traffic of the haul roads, posing as a dump truck returning empty of its load of waste rock - she felt her purpose settle as steel about her bones. They already had their identifications forged and ready, and Talia kept her head down as they passed the security uncontested, her hair tucked up into her hardhat and her face smeared with dirt. She had bound her figure and dressed in a loose miner's uniform, hoping to blend in with the working class men as one of their own should anyone peer close enough.

Once within, she, Barsad, and three more of their men found their way into the deep mines underneath the massive open pit. The hot day, the sand that was already gathering underneath her nails . . . the stone walls all around them, all reminded her of the Pit and the years of her childhood, in an abstract way - towering and indomitable.

And set to burn.

She shouldered her pack on her back, and let a humorless smile settle on her face as they went in deeper.

Above them, a dull alarm sounded, Klaxons wailing in warning. A step ahead of her, Barsad put away a small radio transmitter, his mouth a grim line on his face. Talia blinked, the only sign that she gave that she was pleased by the alarm's sounding. The mines kept a close eye on the methane and carbon monoxide levels in the shafts, and it took only a small amount of tampering to cue the signal to evacuate. All around her, the workers were already steadily making their way to the exits. While they had chosen to act on a day when production would be low, the evacuation served two purposes - minimizing the casualties and ensuring that there were no witnesses to their deeds.

They had several checkpoints around the mines - fifteen total where their explosives would be set, their timing perfectly set so that when the last charge went off the tailing dam would flood the mine completely just minutes after. The tailing dams were designed to rehabilitate the pit into a man-made lake at the end of production - even without their tampering. They were simply . . . hastening that plan along. Talia looked down at her watch, timing the first and second checkpoint as they passed – their charges set in weak spots in the rock, spots that were made even weaker still by the mutilation done to the land from the mines. The irony of that had not been lost on her when she and Bane drew up their scheme, and her smile turned harsh on her face, the cold flame at the core of her licking at her rib bones, ever angry.

Sure enough, when the last charge was set, there was a louder alarm than the one from earlier - signalling the time they had until the flood.

"Bane was successful," Talia announced, picking up her stride. "We take our leave now, gentleman."

Behind her, she could already hear the first of the explosives go off from where they had started. She counted in her mind as they made their way to the exit, knowing that their timing would have to be perfect, and -

Only to be stopped in her tracks by the sound of whimpering, coming from the shaft they passed. The sound was low and scared . . . and youthful.

She stopped, her body seemingly acting without her direction as she tilted her head, looking for the source of the sound. She felt her stomach turn sickly. She had known that this mine used children for their nimble dexterity and usefulness with hard to reach places – and the nearly non-existent wages they were paid, at that, but such labor for children was not uncommon in many areas of the world. When asked why she was choosing this mine to make an example of, she had insisted that it was not the use of children that sparked her ire. Bane's eyes had not believed her at the time, and she had sworn to that truth even in the deepest corners of her own mind, but now . . .

She looked down at her watch. Beyond them, the third checkpoint went off.

Her mouth set in determination, she came over to the edge of the shaft - where a wooden elevator of sorts rested above her head. In the bottom of the shaft she could clearly hear the sound of a child's cries. There were other voices to join the one that cried - shushing and comforting but still youthful themselves.

"Hello?" Talia called down the shaft.

"Hello!" the voice from below turned from his soothing whispers to call up above. "Is anyone up there?" There was relief in the voice. The whimpers from the one that had been crying stilled.

And Talia looked around, trying to find the pulley for the cart to get the children up to safety. "Why do you still linger?" she called. "Did you not hear the call to evacuate?" Her fingers made a fist, needing to know the problem before she could help.

"We cannot," another voice replied, older than the first, but still young - the voice of a boy lingering in that strange place between child and young adult. "The pulley for the cart is jammed, and Sarji broke his leg when the alarm went off - it startled him and he fell from his post."

Talia swallowed as the fourth checkpoint went off. The alarm for the flood still wailed.

She swallowed, setting her shoulders in determination. "I am coming down," she announced to the children, "Step back."

At her side, Yeman – their explosives expert, whom they had picked up in Tehran - started, his face had turned in distaste from the first moment of their delay, and now he was openly disapproving. "You have not the time," he protested. "We have but a scarce few _minutes_, and -"

"Then you waste my time now, do you not?" she hissed. "Make for the surface," she ordered, turning from him to look at the rest of her men. Her gaze brokered no argument. "All of you. I will succeed or fail alone, and you need not follow me."

She needed not to order twice, and then there was the shuffling of retreating feet. Beyond them, the sounds of explosions grew. The fifth cheekpoint then, Talia counted.

When Talia did the rappel line at her belt, her fingers were steady. They did not shake.

Next to her her, Barsad stayed to tie off the other end of the line to one of the strong wooden beams that supported the shaft. His mouth was a determined slash on his face, stretching like a wound.

"I thought I gave an order," Talia raised a brow, curious when Barsad still lingered. "Why do you not run?"

"You did give an order, I heard you," Barsad said simply. His voice was free of fear, but his eyes flickered to the shaft below, and then there was a flicker of worry in their grey-blue depths. "But, the time, milady," he reminded her, his voice that same even, gentle lilt. Steady and sure.

She would linger on thoughts of the sniper later, Talia thought as she stepped into the black air of the shaft, her line hissing as it uncoiled. She fell, the sensation sending butterflies into her stomach for the seconds it took her to reach the ground below. She touched the bottom safely a mere moment later.

Immediately, she was greeted by the dark gazes of the children – four of them. The eldest was a boy of thirteen years with a dirt stained face. He was calm, holding his thin arms around the younger ones, who all but clung to him in their fear. There were two boys of ten, perhaps, and then a tiny one of eight years. Talia felt her stomach settle sickly as she thought of such a life within the mines, at the bottom of a prison of stone, and looking up without the hope of rising . . .

Her hands slipped as she undid the line from her belt.

"My name is Talia," she introduced herself, trying to keep her voice easy and cheerful for the children's sake. They did not need to know how little time they had. "And I am going to get you out of here."

The sounds of explosions were very close now now. The seventh and eighth checkpoint went off as one.

"Here, you first," she said, taking the eldest and the youngest boy at the same time – the younger one whose leg was indeed held at an unnatural angle. Talia winced at the thought of moving him, but further damage to the limb would be better than not moving him at all. She was simply thankful that the child was unconscious - his sleep hiding him from the pain of their flight. It must of been him whom she had heard cry earlier.

Her mind worked as she did the line – the middle two she would be able to carry up with her. Their combined weight was not too much, and time would not allow for any other way. "Barsad!" she called up. "As soon as these two come up, you start running. The child will have to be carried. And when I say that this is an order, I mean it this time!" her voice echoed as she tugged on the line. Above her, Barsad started reeling the children up.

The explosions were near now, very near. The ninth checkpoint went off, Talia counted in her mind. Fear licked in her bones as the line was tossed back to her. Above, she heard Barsad depart, and she knew that her time was short as she did the line about herself and the two little ones, hoping that the wire would hold, that it would be enough -

"I don't like heights much," one of the children said as she held him near – one child underneath each arm, cradling them to her body.

"Think of it as flying ten," Talia said, trying to keep her voice low, soothing. "Close your eyes, and it shall all be over soon." Small fists bunched in the material of her uniform, and her heart ached at the gesture. How easy a child trusted, how easily a child had the faith to rise . . .

Talia thumbed the release, and they sprang through the air easily enough. She held her breath, expecting them to reach the top when -

- the nearest checkpoint exploded, shaking the ground around them, and sending them swinging sickly through the air. A shower of rock fragments and splintered wood flung out at her, and she curled as much of herself over the children as she could, instinct falling into her limbs as she shushed them, all the while trying to get the line to go again. It was stuck, she felt. It would go up no more.

Talia felt her insides turn as she thought through their options. They could rappel up no longer, Talia realized, her fingertips white as she held the children close. And she could not climb with such a load. If she did so, she ran the risk of loosing the two clinging to her . . .

The front of her uniform was wet. Tremors wracked the small forms she held close. A strange peace settled over her as she rubbed her hands absently at their backs, accepting that they would move no further than this.

"Have you ever heard the story of Icarus?" Talia asked softly, trying to ease the fear she saw settle on the two small faces. The children had yet to open their eyes, still following her suggestion from earlier.

One boy shook his head, and Talia felt the fist about her heart move up even higher still. It was hard to breathe for a moment. In her mind she heard her father say _weak, foolish girl -_ condemning the emotion in her that had sealed her own end. She steeled her jaw against it, refusing to let her father be foremost in her mind at the end.

Instead . . .

"Icarus was a boy who was imprisoned with his father," Talia told the tale gently. "And his father built him wings from bird feathers and candle wax so that he could fly away over the ocean, so that he could be free -"

Her voice faltered when she felt them start to rise. There was a tug on the line then – long, jerky movements that told that someone was lifting them bodily, nothing but raw strength and determination lifting them to the top.

Had Barsad returned, then? Talia wondered as they reached the summit. The children in her hold stirred as far beneath them, flames licked and rose, and -

- a strong hand reached down to tug them all over the lip of the shaft, shoving them out of the way and behind a outcropping of rock as explosions rocked the mine below. Talia held her breath instinctively, leaning back into the strong form that sheltered them all as the ground shook, and smoke and debris filled the air from the flames that filled the shaft where they just were. Her breath caught.

The ground stilled, and -

"We can not linger here," came the rasping voice, and Talia opened her eyes to see Bane hovering over them all, discreetly watching the children in her hold in order to ascertain their wellbeing. The children opened their eyes, and Talia felt as they burrowed closer to her at the sight of the large man in the mask. She shushed them. "He is a friend," she assured them. "You need not fear."

They quieted, but only just. When Talia got to her feet, she moved to pick the nearest boy up, but Bane shook his head. "We have not the time for you to be hindered," he said, before kneeling down before the little ones. He was very still for a moment, meeting the gaze of first one boy and then the other, something unreadable passing between them. The boys blinked, and small smiles spread - welcoming, and then Bane picked both of the children up, one brother in each arm, his strong frame easily accommodating the extra weight. They took off through the steppes of the mine, making it to where Barsad was left waiting with one of the jeeps. The rest of their men had already departed.

By the time they made the drive back to the mining town and left the children with those who could reacquaint them with their families, it was drawing close to the evening hour. Satisfaction coiled in her gut as the landscape ran by beyond them on the long drive back to their base. As Bane reported of the second and third team's dealings, she nodded along to his words, pleased to know that their plan had gone off as expected - with few casualties on their part from security at the plant and the dam. They had struck a blow on behalf of the people that day - they had spoken a message that would be hard to ignore.

"Dealings with MINETEC will move swiftly after this," Talia concluded, her smile stretching as she thought of the next few days she would spend in the boardroom. How victory would be sweet indeed . . .

"Ah," Barsad said softly from his position behind the wheel. "Very much a 'your brains or your signature will be on the contract' sort of deal?"

Talia raised a brow, feeling as if there was a reference in the sniper's words that she was missing. Bane mirrored her look.

And Barsad sighed, the barest of smiles tugging on the corner of his mouth. "We are not big on the pop culture references around here, are we?"

Talia shook her head, a brow raised in amusement, even as Bane let out a small snort of laughter. Barsad's eyes twinkled, and the rest of the ride was spent in silence.

.

.

A year had passed since their affairs in Armenia, and already their Brotherhood of Shadows – what her men more commonly called the _League of Assassins_ – was growing in strength and might. To their permanent name, they had near a hundred men now – a hundred _good_ men, worthy of the training and the dogma's places upon their shoulders.

But the running of an operation such as theirs required investments and capital – and while Talia had been careful planning her accounts and finances from that first lucrative surge of income when she left her father's house, new revenues and sources of trade were always under her radar for the betterment of their cause.

That end was what brought her to Moscow that week – and, more specifically, to the Bolshoi opera house to see the ballet open their season with Khachaturian's _Spartacus. _That evening, she hung on the arm of one General Piotr Vasilevich, a man who had made his fortune in his country's vast oil and natural gas reserves. In the post Soviet economy, much had shifted and changed in the balance of power, and once the Russian Federation emerged from the ashes, Vasilevich's careful planning had won himself a plush seat in the new order. His wealth was built on the struggles of his country, and Talia was only too happy to take that gilded chair from him.

And so, there she was, in a red velvet box on the right side of the theater. The box gave a terrible view of the stage, but all in the audience could see them perfectly well - the seats of the elite, as always, were more for the showing off of their wealth and status rather than a way to appreciate the dramatic art being played out on the stage below. Talia tilted her neck as best she could, and still let herself enjoy the show. The dancing was violent and passionate, and Talia cared more for it than she did for the odious man whom fortune insisted that she deal with. She sat prettily at Piotr's side, a smile stitched to her face from her arsenal of such weapons – all sharpened and kept clean as much as she did with her knives. After a week of eating out of her hand, Piotr would swear anything to her - including a sizable investment from his rather extensive fortune – which would someday lead to a complete overtaking of his companies, if she played her hand right - and Talia considered her work done.

At the end of the performance, Talia saw to it that the General's valet took him away from the evening – having slipped a special blend of herbs into his champagne earlier in order to ensure that he would have a night of pleasant slumber rather than the company he so expected. She smoothed out the front of her skirts as Piotr was carried away, preparing to leave.

She had lingered until the auditorium was empty but for the theater's own personal who were cleaning up after the performance. The lights were dim already, casting long shadows this way and that. It was an almost eerie silence, held too still in the eaves of a building that was made for sound – for an orchestra's wave and a singer's soaring tones. As soon as she pushed aside the velvet curtains of the box, she slipped her shoes from her feet and winced as the arches of her feet realigned themselves to stand levelly upon the ground. The thickly carpeted floor was soft under her toes, and for a moment she winced, not even wanting to put them back on for the cobblestone ways outside.

_Ah, but it in Russia_, she reminded herself, the ground would undoubtedly be cold outside. She looked beyond the walls of the theater, and wondered if it was snowing. That thought in her mind – that longing in her heart, she made to leave the theater, ready to distance herself from the folds of gold and marble, the womb of music and the haunting strains of dead arias left wafting in the air in favor of the night air beyond.

A shadow detached itself from the wall when she turned to make her leave through one of the service corridors, keeping to the unused ways of the theater to avoid being seen. The shadow fell into step next to her, and Talia raised a brow, her mouth a straight line upon her face.

"I had felt you lurking about this evening, my friend," she said in greeting.

"Such theaters have long been accustomed to sharing their shadows with shades, if indeed I was _lurking_," Bane said levelly in return. His footsteps were silent, the only sound on the air was the breath through his mask. The hum of his mask was an overly synthetic sound, surrounded by gild and velvet as they were.

"Lurking you were indeed," Talia retorted, her mouth forming a smile without humor, "And yet, you are in the wrong city for such a thing, my friend."

"And only Paris can lay claim to a masked ghost in its theater's shadows?" Bane inquired curiously.

A chuckle escaped her lips, amusement rising in her throat instead of irritation. "It is very French, you have to admit? Few other theaters could handle such a paranormal specter so well," Talia responded in French, slipping into the rolling language as if the shadow of the Pit was still around them, and they played with one tongue and then the next in order to pass the time.

"I would understand a ghost's preference for Paris," Bane gave, steadily keeping his voice to the language of her childhood – the soothing dips and slurs those she remembered from her mother's mouth.

Talia's eyes fluttered at the sound of that language on his lips, her skin warming as if remembering the dessert sun. Her mouth was suddenly dry, as if from thirst, even though she still held the taste of champagne in the back of her mouth.

"I had thought that there was a football game that had drawn your attention to the evening?" Talia questioned from a different angle. While not a tradition – Bane and Barsad (who had risen through their ranks to be Bane's most trusted man - _a friend_, had they lived any other life besides their own; had Bane not had Talia and her shadows and little regard for anything else) were known to slink to whatever football stadium they were near and watch a game when they could in the shadows.

"There was," Bane said without giving more.

"Ah," Talia said, raising a brow. Her voice was clipped from her mouth. "You thought your eyes were better suited here?"

"Or perhaps I am simply a fan of Khachaturian," Bane responded levelly.

Talia raised a brow, trying to bite down the annoyance she suddenly felt rise in her throat – knowing that he did not tail her out of doubting her own skills, but rather for a sheer distaste of the games she played with such men.

"And Barsad is as fond of Khachaturian as you are?" Talia questioned.

"Even more so," Bane's voice was dry.

Talia sighed, fighting the urge to rub at her temples. "I hope that you at least waved him away before coming to fetch me. Or is he still lingering in some corner of the theater?"

"He did not _linger_ in any corner," Bane said conversationally, "He was bought a box of his own."

Talia blinked. "I did not notice."

"He was directly across the auditorium from you, and one box over," Bane said. "I am surprised that he went past your notice – unless your companion's conversation was so engrossing this evening? Then such lapses can be understood."

Talia bristled. "What can I say? Khachaturian is enough to ensnare the senses completely."

"Indeed," Bane's voice was clipped, a match for her own.

And Talia sighed, suddenly weary. Her annoyance failed her, like a flame without the air to give it life. "Such men as Piotr are a necessary evil, Baldassare," Talia said gently, speaking to the rage that even still lurked in his eyes. "I lead them with my words, and they read what promises they think dwell there. Nothing more."

A moment passed before Bane spoke. Even feeling as he did, his steps still shadowed her own, a mirror unfailing. Talia breathed, and could feel as his breath echoed his own; like two bodies cut from the same fabric of flesh. "Even the honor of your eyes, of your words, bestowed in such a way . . . Even if you are only as a spider spinning her web, each and every gift of your attention burns," Bane said frankly. It was the first time he had said so, and she knew it would be the last - for not lightly would he voice his discomfort, and not lightly would he belittle the choices she made for their Brothers - for the cold flame deep in the core of her. "It is disquieting . . ." he finally admitted, as if sharing something secret. His voice was a stilled whisper, as if even _he_ was discomforted by the depths of the ferocity which he carried in his veins. "It is disquieting, how little I care for a man's right to live and breathe when he even _looks_ upon you, let alone those who think themselves entitled to more – those who _expect_ more."

She twined her arm through his, resting her head on her shoulder as they walked. She sighed. "And words are all they have – smoke and mirrors - an artist's lie. I have known your touch, and yours alone, and only _you_ have seen the face that is truly my own. What I show to the rest of the world is only a mask - thought not as tangible as yours."

Bane was silent, saying naught of the thoughts that were as a noose about his mind. Her words were a truth to him - something he accepted at a logical level, if not as anything deeper, and it was for that reason and that reason alone that he let the men she dallied with live. If ever one was to push past her words and whispers for more than she currently gave . . . Bane did not obey her, he did not serve her, so much as he moved in time with her - his goals and aspirations meeting and matching her own. If that day ever came, she knew that she would not be able to keep the blood from his hands. In a moment of honesty – a dark moment, born from the part of her that was still Pit-feral and fed - she knew that she would not want to, delighting as she did in the dark thread of possession that had layered his voice when he had had simply admitted his jealousy to her.

Talia bit her lip as she thought, wondering if such a twisted thrill was something that she should worry over in the depths of her psyche. She turned the question over in her mind before pushing it away, knowing that if she judged her thoughts by the rules the rest of humanity used to govern their lives, then she would be found wanting indeed. But they . . . they did not have the means nor the determination to do what was necessary. The world was built on evil, but it could be cleansed by necessary evil, just as the forests were fed and made fertile again by fire. The most violent of deaths gave way to the greatest of births - what was born from the ashes was always the stronger for that which had died before.

Finally, she sighed, her thoughts as a weight on her shoulders.

"Sometimes," she whispered, "I wonder what any other life would have given to us. Here we attend the theater, I in my mask, and you in your shadows. Under any other circumstances, I would have helped you knot your bow tie for the evening. I would have smoothed the lapels of your suit. Perhaps, on normal days, I would even match my dresses with your ties – if you were some accountant or doctor and I was -"

Her mental picture faded, unable as she was to see herself without blood and steel, even in her most fervent imaginings. She searched for an occupation, unable to find one beyond knives and fire. "A dancer . . . an artist?" Bane supplied when her pause stretched on.

"Aren't I already?" Talia smirked.

"In a way," Bane said levelly, and she rolled her eyes unseen from him.

"We would have a quaint two story brick house, and a child or two," she continued, feeling a smile turn up over the words. "Or three," she said next, something _right_ about the number settling on her tongue. Another time, another life . . . she thought, and something twisted, deep inside of her. Longing, perhaps? The emotion was hard to define in the deep of her. She could not put a name to it.

"With a white picket fence," Bane added.

"A dog named Spot," she mused aloud.

"It sounds perfectly . . ." he faltered, searching for the right word.

"Dull?" Talia supplied for him, something heavy sitting in her stomach, like a stone.

"I wouldn't say that entirely," Bane gave carefully. She stiffened, just slightly, worrying her lip between her teeth. For this world was hers, and into her shadows Bane had followed - not out of love for them, but for her. It was not the first time she wondered at his place at her side, and it would not be the last . . . "And yet, I regret not of the decisions that have led me here," he said, no doubt feeling the tension in her spine, travelling from her body to his. "I would each and every one of them, had I again to choose."

"All of them?" she looked up. His mask was swallowed by the shadows, nothing but a black shape where the light did not touch.

A second. "All of them," Bane breathed as they came to the exit of the theater.

Before the doors, Talia leaned on her friend in order to put on the accursed heels that went with her dress. The sides of the stilettos were scuffed from a stumble she had taken earlier while preparing for the evening. The sight of the mark made her smile, remembering those long hours she had spent in her father's house – learning to dance while wearing such things, Bane's smile shaped to tease from the corner of her room as his eyes _lingered_ with an intensity she had not understood then . . .

Her cheeks were flushed, but the air beyond the theater was cold. Cleansing.

She looked up, and saw that it was snowing. The clouds hid the moon and stars from the sky. Fat flakes of snow glittered in the lamplight as they fell, bathing the city in a starry field of its own. The world was quiet in that moment, the bastion of stone and mortar around her turning in on itself for the night.

As they passed the shadow of the _quadriga_, Bane held her closer to her side – to shield his face, to add to her warmth, to protect them both against the cold biting at their bones – a dozen reasons passed through her mind, but none mattered in the end as she leaned in to him, content to share his stride until it could not be told where her shadow ended and his began.

.

.

Two years after their flight from the League of Shadows, their Brotherhood in Antalya grew past a hundred men.

The base she built in the green mountains becomes prosperous, pregnant and full with the sound of voices. The training rooms were alight with steel and arms of fire. The kitchens bustled – chores traded and completed as they had been at the League those years ago. There was a constant coming and going – those senior of her trust and care now taking missions on their own, all in the name of their Brothers left behind.

This time, instead of eating at their sides, instead of toiling in the kitchens and scrubbing the floors of the dojo – her name nothing where all must have a share – she stayed in the distance, in the background, like a shadow, a wraith. She kept separate from the men of her Brotherhood. Where her father had been tangible amongst his own men – even when hiding behind the shadow of Henri Ducard, Talia was an idea, a whisper – a specter lingering, female shaped, behind their leader. They thought Bane to be the head of the beast, and Talia let their illusions remain.

Instead, she capitalized on Bane's ability to speak; to lead and to inflame and _inspire_. He became the physical head of their order, no one ever the wiser that he bowed to another when the doors were shut and the curtains drawn. But, that was as much as the tides bowed to the moon – each tugging and pulling and being drawn in return. Bane took her mantle of leadership with tender hands, as if afraid to bruise a dream, and in the wake of her trust he was building an empire to someday aspire to the same ranks as her father's.

Where Bane was their leader and lord, Barsad took on many of the roles that Ubu would have once held. The men would never find a friend in Bane – but in Barsad they took their tiffs and complaints. Barsad, in turn, reported to them, and the knowing of the everyday human connections in their ranks made for smoother sailing in the long run – keeping an eye on morale and the individual cares and aspirations within their ranks.

In Barsad as a whole, Bane had found himself a shadow – much as Ubu had seconded her father's steps. As Ubu had placed himself as both sword and shield in the hands of the Demonhead, so the sniper became to Bane. The man moved through their ranks, slowly growing in their trust, moving from hired hand and bodyguard to a voice of reason at their councils and trusted spokesmen whenever they moved men on their own missions - away from her and Bane's direct contact. Talia could not go that extra step and call them friends, for Bane was oddly uncertain over how to deal with such a thing, and Barsad was leery to step past the line that separated commander and commanded.

Ubu would have liked him, Talia thought, thinking of the sniper's soft and oftentimes morbid humor, and the easy sort of insight he wore behind his eyes like sorrow. Thoughts of Ubu still bought a pain to Talia – not unlike missing – but whenever those moments would come, she would breathe in deep with them, and exhale. The emotion meant nothing to her. She needed it not. And so, memory of her friend was forgotten until it could again be of use to her.

And yet, just as a well oiled machine was of great value, of great worth, it was still a machine, and things of steel and wood broke. Cogs slipped from their sockets, and gears sputtered and refused to spin.

And, sometimes, things needed to be broken to work again.

It had started simply enough. The dojo was divided into rings – on the lowest rings, the oldest of their recruits worked with their newest, teaching them the basics that they themselves had learned at Bane's side. In the middle rings their intermediate Brothers trained with each other, and, most often, with Bane – who took over at this step of their development, a critical eye out for success and failure. In the outermost circles, the advanced recruits worked within their own ranks, advancing their own skills and sharpening those of the others. When eager enough for a test, a challenge, they would draw Bane into their circle –_ Bane,_ who could crush a neck with one hand, who knew the hollow spaces between bones and the fragile spots on flesh, became a teacher then – easily disarming his student's attacks, even the most advanced of them, and speaking why he did so, ever schooling, ever shaping. Forging.

Talia, who remembered his schooling from her earliest years, felt her heart hang heavy in her chest watching this. What had happened in the world Before (as she abstractly thought of Bane before the Pit, when his face was youthful and he knew the light of the sun. When he was called _Baldassare_ and not _Bane_ – monstrosity and nightmare and feared, half-feral thing), to allow him to instruct in such a way? Where had he himself learned? It was a question she often held on the tip of her tongue, trapped behind her syllables at odd points of the day. But he would not answer and she had ceased to ask – letting him keep his secrets for as long as he deemed them necessary to keep.

She returned one day to silence in her office – overlooking the training rings bellow, much as her father's had at the monastery. She had just completed business a week of business in Mumbai – her hair still smelled of the hot sun and thick spices. Though she wore a grey business coat, she still had dozens of golden bracelets on her arms, their sound musical as they moved – an indulgence as she had yet to remove. The soft, thin material of her _shalwar khameez_ slipped against her skin, a bright flare of color underneath the drab tones she wore overtop. Few would of known of her return but for Basard – who had met her at the airport in the city, and for Bane, who had an uncanny sixth sense for her comings and goings.

But whispers had followed, speaking of the wisp of the woman who walked through their halls – Ammon was foremost amongst those voices, having catching sight of her golden jewelry and speaking of it to his fellows. Vaguely, she remembered recruiting him during a rather violent piece of business in Alexandria. Bane had liked the man - all dusky skin and clever eyes, and rather crafty when it came to wielding a knife.

But his tongue was loose, and his words were tinted with scorn as he dared to speak aloud to his fellows the only reason a woman could be of use to Bane - especially hidden so in shadows. When his whispers had turned crude – much to the shifting eyes of his fellows, who were not as bold to speak so of their leader, even when hidden by shadows – detailing the exact ways that his mask would hinder such activities, he had had the gall to be surprised when he was plucked from the shadows that had concealed him – stirring the beast that lurked underneath the calm and amiable voice of Bane, distorted by rasps and venomous fumes.

Talia still hadn't bothered to take the gold bracelets from her arms as she knelt before Ammon's prostrate form – held into place by Basard's restraining hand and Bane's unkind eyes both. When she lowered the hood from over her head – revealing her thickly lashed eyes and sensual mouth, that same mouth had smiled to see the understanding on Ammon's face when he realized just how the balance of power worked at the summit of the Brotherhood – Bane and Barsad both looking on her in reverence as she traced a painted nail over the curve of his chin, the rise of his cheek. She fought the urge to nip at his flesh, to taste blood pool under skin and let her teeth linger.

She exhaled, rising. As she passed Bane, she let that same hand rest on one of Bane's broad shoulders. She had to reach up to do so.

"See to it that he cannot speak again," she said conversationally. "After that, I leave the decision of his fate to you." As she spoke, she let her touch wander over the back of his neck, finding the path of stones that was her friend's spine. She needed no touch of her mouth to make Bane's eyes flicker – a barest glimpse of emotion for the sake of the man bound at their feet, just enough for him to understand what Talia was to Bane, and he was to her.

By the time Bane returned that evening, Talia had already washed the scent of Mumbai from her skin, and was dressed naught but for a pale beige robe for the night. She had her charts and maps out in the lamplight, but her eyes were unfocused, far away.

She was lost in thought, remembering the easy way Bane had taught the green students in the moments before their day had turned unsavory. She remembered the _rightness_ of him as mentor and teacher both.

In any other life, would he have taken so easily to blood and fire? From is mask, a whistled tune fell in discordant tones as he went into the bathroom to wash the blood from his hands. It had touched little anywhere else. He was careful. Precise.

And she sighed as she got to her feet. Her thoughts were heavy in her eyes as she leaned against the doorpost, watching him. The water was pink in the sink.

"You watch me as you would have watched the sky years ago, little one," he said. She blinked at the old nickname, her hands falling to fiddle with the tie of her robe.

She opened her mouth, wishing to share her thoughts. They curdled on her tongue, but she could give them no shape.

Bane waited patiently – turning off the sink and drying his hands. When he stepped closer to her – hooking a single finger under the point of her chin to turn her gaze up, his skin still smelled of copper. Her eyes glanced to the shower beyond him, suddenly wishing for the comfort of steam and water as blood was washed away for that base scent that was him and him alone.

His eyes followed her gaze, but his mask hid his expression from her. Her fingers itched, wanting to peel that veil away. Her mouth hooked, but that too was unsaid on her lips. She could not find a way to say it.

While his first finger held her chin, his thumb came to caress the skin beneath her mouth - tender and loving, _assuring_.

"What else would there be?" he asked then, his mask hardly picking up from the whisper from his mouth. "A white picket fence?"

She swallowed. "And a dog named spot," she finished, her words falling against his skin.

She could not see his smile, but she could see the crinkling around his eyes. She could feel his fondness in the shape of his skin. "I want naught of it," he said softly, his voice a promise – an assurance, all _you are stronger than these walls – the sky can deny you not._

She swallowed. Her throat was a stone, sinking with her breath. Instead of answering, she leaned her head forward against him, a burden slipping from her shoulders – a weight falling but not forgotten, there to join her shadow.

.

.

Five months later found them in Durban, South Africa, breaking up a shipping line of the corrupt Ten Knives organization – a league of men who dabbled in everything from weapons to live human cargo, with men for hire and armies available to the highest bidder along the way. Over the years, the Ten Knives had developed a monopoly on criminal shipping - running cargo from Shenzen and Busan to Dubai and Durban and then as far north in the world as Hamburg and Felixstowe. They were branching out across the sea then, touching even the ports of Gotham and South Lousiana in the States.

Tackling the Ten Knives was one of the most ambitious missions she had given to her men yet. To optimize their blow, Talia and her Brothers picked a time to strike when the three highest ranking men of the Knives would be in Durban, overseeing a shipment of arms to Jeddah, a port city in Saudi Arabia. Along with the deaths of the lead men in the organization, her Brothers would also sabotage the shipments of some very dangerous men – casting doubt on the wisdom of dealing with the Ten Knives after the careful campaign Talia had been waging against dozens of their other shipments as well over the last year. It was a large organization to topple – in some ways, it was akin to toppling a small country, but she had not lasted for so long in life by thinking small. Her men she trusted implicitly - she would take any of them over her father's Shadows. Her _Brothers_, formed in flame and crucible and blood as she had been . . .

Fighting on the docks was long, and it was bloody. The men of the Ten Knives were no mere hired hands, they were true assassins, cruel ex-military men, devoted to their trade and demanding top dollar from their employees for their skills. It had been a very long time since Talia had faced off with someone worthy of her skills, and it had been liberating standing toe to toe with weapons of steel rather than weapons of words.

But, that night, they were not the only ones who thought the Ten Knives ripe for the picking.

When she made it to the Harbor Master's office – in the summit of a tall tower standing regally from the piers - none other than Ra's al-Ghul himself and his Seven Hands were there already, her prize claimed as their own as the dead bodies of the Ten Knive's overseers feel to the ground, their blood running sluggishly to soak the rug underneath them.

Talia had stood in the doorway with her chest heaving, her eyes looking on in disbelief as Ra's calmly turned to face her – his smile as easy as if he had seen her just the other day rather than years prior. Only the coolness around his eyes revealed a glimpse of his true emotions.

The cold flame at the core of her flared into life then. It _burned_.

"An adequate diversion, daughter," Ra's said, his voice as pleasant as if he were asking her to pass the salt at dinner as he flicked the overlord's blood from his blade. The Chinese sword caught the light, and she focused on that for a moment rather than the mocking glow in her father's eyes.

"Diversion?" she repeated incredulously, finding her voice – lost as it had been by the tightening of her chest. "We did all of the grunt labor so that your Seven here could sit pretty without sullying their armor. This victory is not your own!"

Ra's' face creased in delicate disapproval – as if she were still a child, throwing a tantrum that he had to sit patiently through. She clenched her hands, wishing that she did not wear her gauntlets and gloves. She wanted to feel the press of her nails into her skin. "The only victories you have achieved, daughter, are those we have allowed you to."

He held himself haughtily as he signaled to his men, and neatly, moving as shadows, they followed their master from the office. Talia stood for a moment and watched them go, ire and shame fighting for supremacy in her as she sheathed her twin blades, sick of the feel of steel in that moment

She did not step to the side, but the Seven brushed past her anyway, scarcely disturbing her in their haste to leave. At her back, Barsad was a presence, a weight, and suddenly Talia was so very grateful that Bane still fought with the men below – for that was a confrontation she wished to postpone indefinitely, knowing as she did that Bane would hold his blows before her father for her sake, but unsure if her father would grant the other that same honor.

Ra's was the last of his men to leave – standing in her shadow and lingering. "Did you think that once you walked free of the shadows, that their stain would touch you not?"

He lingered a moment. Her breath was shared with his.

And then he left, leaving Talia in the wake of his cool disdain. Her fisted hands trembled, even while the rest of her seemed to be carved from stone – untouchable and unmoving.

Behind her, Barsad wisely said nothing. He did not lift a hand – either for comfort, or to urge her onwards. He was merely silent.

And Talia exhaled violently. She spun on her heel, and ordered her men to draw back. There was nothing left for them there.

While Bane and Barsad rallied the men and took care of the loose ends, Talia retreated to the sea shore, angrily throwing rocks into the lazy rolling of the surf. The sea was not placid that night, it was angry, coming in with a great and rolling rage, attacking the rocks of the seashore rather than gently kissing the sand. Above her, the moon was full, yanking on the chains of the tides before sending the waters reeling back to crash against dry land.

Her vision was white. Talia knew exactly how the waves felt.

She did not know how much time had passed – she only knew that the moon had waned to her left and there were new stars in the sky by the time Bane joined her. He ignored her anger and her steady assault of stones she threw to be swallowed by the waves. He took a seat on one of the lower hanging rocks as she continued with her task, sitting with his wrists crossed lazily over his knees. The light from the heavens made twisted shapes on his mask, it cast distorted shadows against his skin.

_Adequate . . . diversion . . . allowed_. The flame at the core of her was behind her eyes then, she couldn't see past it.

With an inarticulate sound, she threw the last stone from her hand. It split like a tear in the tissue of the waves before the water crested, crashing upon itself, and her stone was no more.

She stood very still for a moment – doing nothing but breathing as she willed the static to disappear from her gaze.

She was only moderately successful.

"Diversion," she spat as soon as her thundering pulse was quiet enough to allow her words. She reached down at her feet, picking up more pebbles. "Adequate," another rock pierced the waves. "Allowed," and another. "Who does he think he is?" Talia seethed, her voice thin and shrill at the end of her syllables.

She ran out of stones.

Twirling in place, she looked down at the ground beneath her. She moved another step to the right, that area of the shore picked dry. But she moved too fast, and her vision swirled drunkenly. She fell to one knee, trying to catch her breath, trying to still the spinning of the world around her.

Her other knee fell to join the first. Her fists trembled as she knelt before giving up and sinking completely to sit upon the shore. Her hair whipped wildly around her face, caught in the same dance of the waves in the ocean beyond.

A moment passed, and then another. As her heart stilled in her chest, another shadow joined hers. She looked up, and for a moment, Bane blocked out the light of the moon. She inhaled shakily, her lungs aching in her chest.

"I do not understand why I still care," she admitted miserably as he knelt down next to her. "It is clear that I have passed from his thoughts. It is clear that my work – a shadow of his own," she laughed hollowly, "reaches not the lofty and high standards of the League of Shadows. But I . . ." the words were trapped on her tongue, she could not get them out.

Suddenly weary, she leaned forward, wrapping her arms about herself. She rested her forehead against Bane's chest, lulled by the strong and steady beat of his heart. He was still slow to embrace her – resting only a heavy hand against her back as he let her work through her grief, acting as an eye in her storm until she was ready to calm completely.

"Why do I still care so much for what he thinks?" Talia asked into his chest. Her breathing had calmed, lulling in order to match the steady cadence of his own. "It would be so much easier if I just knew _hate_. If I just knew _anger_ for his condescension, for his hypocrisy. Because, I do . . . I want his pride in me. I want his favor." _I want his love_, she admitted miserably in the shadows of her mind, unable to let the words drop from her lips – even to Bane's ears, whom she thought of as an extension of her own body, of her own soul.

But she couldn't . . . She could not shape her mouth around the words.

And, somehow, he heard what she did not say. He saw what hid behind her eyes, like a fawn in the forest shadows. "He is a fool not to love you," Bane said gently. His hand was no longer still against his back – he traced slow circles, rubbing soothingly. His touch was hindered by the straps of her armor, the thick padding of her vest, but she could still feel the heat of him.

"I thought . . . I thought that with all of the work I did from afar . . . work so much like his own life's mission . . . I thought that when he did not see my face – my mother's face -" Talia laughed bitterly, for as each day passed and she grew into her years, she was Melisande's ghost returned completely. All but for her eyes . . . her father's eyes. "I thought, that without me there as a constant reminder, he would love – if not me – then my actions. He would find pride for the work I did in his name. But it is for nothing, it would seem."

She turned her face so that her cheek rested against the coarse fabric of the front of his shirt. The straps of his own armor were coarse. They chaffed against her skin.

"Before Father found me," she started, exorcising an old tale, an old grief, still fresh in her chest, "I was a petty thief – thinking that I took from those who had more to give to those had little. I killed those who held their power over others, but I was young and blindly striking out against the injustices of the world," she sighed. "When Ra's found me in that prison, he said that I was flailing aimlessly, striking against the shadows of injustice rather than its core. I hate . . . I _hate_ to think that he thinks that of me even still. And I hate that I yearn for his approval, even still. It is . . . it is such a flame inside of me. I feel that I cannot _breathe_ with wanting it so, at times."

She wondered if he could see it shining through her, the cold flame at the core of her – she wondered if it spilled out from behind her eyes and seeped through her pores, if it lingered in the cracks and corners of her body and glittered for all to see. She felt could feel it rising with her breath at times, encircling her bones like new skin . . .

"Nothing you feel is wrong, my dear," he whispered, his voice a low hiss from his mask. _My dear_, not _little one_ – she to be protected or held close, but rather she of strength. And her strength was as much her own as that which she gave to him and he to her in return. She sucked in a breath. "I cannot give you the words you seek," Bane continued, "but I can say . . . I can say that your father is a man whose mind words in shadows – perhaps even to himself. I fear nothing for your feelings but for that same shadow to someday poison your own soul."

Her hands fisted against his chest. She fought the urge to strike then. She forced her limbs to be boneless rather than straight and severe.

"How do I let this feeling go?" she mumbled, her voice muffled from where she had pressed her face against him. He heard her anyway.

"When you learn how to do so, my dear," Bane's voice was rueful. "Do let me know."

She snorted, a stab of black amusement stabbing between her ribs as she leaned back enough from him to look up at his face. She could not see his eyes, only the spidery shape of his mask, dark in the unlight. She could not smell the salt of the sea over the sour smell of the venom he breathed, numbing his pain.

She reached up, gently running a single fingertip over the tubes and metal plates. Her lips tingled as she remembered those same shapes under her mouth – breathing in devotion and apology both.

Her fingers stilled. She could feel her breath against her skin.

He was not the only one to wear a mask, her thoughts reminded er. But the one she wore offered her not of oblivion, of peace. She thought as such, but did not say the words aloud. Instead, she let the ocean chase away the sound of her thoughts, the festering source of her pain, and tried to find peace in the tide.

.

.

In the fall after Durban, she saw _Don Giovanni_ at Prague's Stavovské Divadlo.

She sat, quiet at the side of that night's target, as Donna Anna's murdered father came as stone and righteous breath, allowing Giovanni one last chance at repentance before dragging the rake to hell. The chorus of devils and demons drowned out Giovanni's last despairing notes as he descended bellow the stage. But even with the flames, brimstone and salt, he still refused to admit his error; he still refused to seek forgiveness from a spirit that he had wronged in the most grievous of ways.

Talia exhaled, the stiff corset of her dress making it hard to do anything more. She fanned her face as she uttered something simpering about the heat from the flames on stage, but, in truth, she saw little else as the final notes rang sweetly through the too-warm air.

She stood before the orchestra played its last bars, and turned from the box. Her heart was hammering like Leporello's on the stage below. Her fingers were white knuckled as she picked up the skirts of her dress.

"You did not enjoy the finale?" came the question from Lord Lepedo's lips – her 'date' for the evening – and Talia hid a smile behind her fan before snapping it shut with a flick of her wrist.

"What can I say? A little opera goes a long way," she teased, winding her arm through his as if she truly were a jeweled flower of the aristocracy. She lead him those final steps, and unlike Don Pedro, she gave the murderer on her arm little time to repent of his sins. There was no heaven and hell in her world; only the grey in-between of the shadows. And the shadows answered to her.

She thought not of her father as the man's screams were cut off before they began.

"_Questo è il fin di chi fa mal, e de' perfidi la morte alla vita è sempre ugual_," she whispered as she fell to the background of the action, her voice cold.

_Such is the end of the evildoer; the death of a sinner always reflects his life._

She fisted her hands, and felt nothing.

.

.

Time passed. Days spent out their hours and nights passed on as dreams forgotten as the years unfolded before them. She shaped her words as blows and thrust her blades into the matter of the world in order to cut away from the body of humanity its cancer. She carried on her work, her father's work, adding an ever constant fuel to the cold flame, ever burning in the core of her.

In the end, some days were better than others.

Some days were only silence in the green mountains of Antalya, where Talia would close her eyes and listen to the rhythm of the rain. She would feel her pulse hammer at the sound of thunder. The storm snared in her bones and rose with her breath as if they were kindred. She'd remember -

_"It is such a big sound, the storm. Such an angry sound."_

_"Even the skies wish to scream at times, little one. It cannot hold itself up forever without wishing to tell the world below of its pain."_

- and she'd hold her hand out to the storm as if she were a child seeking the rain between the bars again.

She was able to show Bane the temples in Bagan – where she had first understood the idea of worship in those years after the Pit, and Bane in turn showed her the ruins of libraries at Celsus, Ugriant and Nalanda – great academic wonders from the ancient world. Their outer shells were in ruin, but the wealth of knowledge they held within lingered even past their fall - their shells burned, but their spirits remained. She asked if his fondness for lost literature was from Before, but his answers were vague and his eyes twinkling – as if teasing her with his refusal to provide answers to the questions she asked.

Some days she would remember for camaraderie. Barsad had taken it as a personal challenge to keep up with she and Bane as they switched from one tongue to the other, and although his Hungarian needed improvement, his French was excellent. There was a night in Antalya after a particularly rough patch in Mosul where the sniper finally showed to them the _Godfather_, and that led to a list of other such classics that he said they were missing out on. Talia, never really one for the cinematic arts, did not appreciate the films so much as she appreciated Bane's amusement over them – his laughter low and snaking from beneath the confines of his mask as he watched the plots play out before them.

And then, some days she would remember as finding bright places in dark skies – like that time in Baghdad when she rediscovered just _how badly_ a bullet wound hurt. Her surprise and indignation over the pain had been worse than the actual wound itself, or so she had thought at the time . . . Although, admittedly, she had not had to suffer through such a wound since a particularly bad day in Islamabad in her second year with the League – and she knew she had been fortunate to be spared such a thing again with such a list of campaigns notched in her sword – but still, she had thought that she was ready to face the fire on her skin, the sting to her nerves – the throbbing of muscle and bone as she carried her useless arm with her other, trying to keep her wits about herself in order to see the retreat through to its end. She remembered little past that - not regaining conciousness until they had reached their encampment on the banks of the Euphrates river and Barsad was sewing her flesh back together. When he noticed her awake, he took to speaking of his own scars to pass the time. Bane, watching steadily from beside the sniper, had then revealed to the origin of a long knife wound on the back of his arm he had had since before the Pit. Talia had drank his words in almost desperately, willing to face the pain of the bullet in her arm in order to grasp at any piece of her friend's past. She had fallen asleep that night with the river in her ears and a half-haze memory of Agadir (a city just southwest of Marrakesh on the African coast) to pass through her dreams that night, a small piece of a much larger puzzle falling into place.

Some days she would remember as peace – laying on shores far unknown from any living soul and listening to the sound the ocean made, never forgetting her fascination for the waters of the world after spending the first years of her life with her mouth nearly always parched with thirst. Some days she would remember as satisfaction – sinking blades in deep and whispering her judgments even as her executions were played out before her eyes.

Some days, she would remember at the end – the very end. She would remember hands at her skin worshiping where mouth and tongue could not but for shape of words. She would remember dozen upon a dozen places of the world – nameless to all but to those who knew the hidden secrets of the earth – an interlude there, a gift of sakarni there on an anniversary she had not intended to celebrate, a whispered word there – how dots on a map slowly filled with memories and recollections rather than goals and aspirations.

Those are the memories she would draw close in the cold days before the end . . . the very end . . .

. . . and long for.

.

.

And then, there were days when the shadows stretched on long and deep and refused to share the comfort of their embrace.

Talia had nightmares on more nights than she liked to admit to – but normally they were born through in silence, her mouth curved in displeasure for her body's betrayal as soon as she awakened. Such a weakness, such a soreness in her armor, was unacceptable - even in the unwaking hours.

But her oldest nightmares had refused to release her throughout the years. Those were the ones she could not shake - memories of the Pit, both real and imagined - remembering her mother as she was torn apart, imagining herself older and in those same hands as greedy hands clawed and took what they wanted. Worse than those dreams were the ones where, not only could Bane not save her, but he was torn apart before her eyes – and his death was her fault - _her fault, her fault_ – his only crime loving her so foolishly enough to find his end where hers was already assured. Her death in that place was an inevitability - nothing but a matter of time, and how easily he placed himself into her fate . . .

Those were the dreams that left her shaking in their wakes, stumbling up from her bed – still a nest of blankets on the floor, throughout the years, that had not changed – to move to the cool fireplace that dominated one wall of her quarters. Those nights, she had not been able to stand the darkness, and her fingers shook as she tried to get the kindle to spark, _to take flame_ . . .

Only to have the flint taken from her more often than not – Bane sparking the fire to life as she sat back to watch, her feelings still too great in her veins to speak. Always Bane seemed to understand without her words as the golden tongues of flame let their light fall between them – dancing over their skin while never truly touching.

And she would ask, "Do you ever dream of it?" her voice low and uncertain, as if she were a child all over again. "The Pit?"

"More often than I would like," there was a simple honesty in Bane's voice, no pity or condolences, just understanding. She cleaved to the sound like she would to an anchor amongst waves. "But, my memories of that time are not constrained to the nighttime hours."

Too often, such thoughts did dominate even the day . . . The thought was a wound, a blow.

And she inhaled with her pain, her memories. She held the breath on her tongue, as if preparing for a stitch, the sting of a healing balm.

And she exhaled.

"I remember the first time I saw you – you passed bread between the bars," she whispered as the fire before them grew warmer, its flames building, feeding one upon the other.

A moment, and there was something unreadable in Bane's eyes. "And your mother nearly removed my hand from my wrist when I came too close," Bane shared the memory.

The smile she gave felt awkward upon her face, as if not sure of its place upon her mouth. "She did not trust you," Talia revealed, her smile stretching tightly. "She told me never to trust men with handsome eyes, especially when they had smiles to match."

"She was wise," Bane nodded his head in agreement, and Talia moved so that she sat right next to him, her thigh pressed to his. Her heart had lost its chaotic rhythm. Her past was just that – _past_. She took what she needed from it and left the rest. At least . . . in theory, such a thing was easy enough.

"I do not know," Talia looked thoughtful. "I find your eyes very handsome," she reached over to trace a fingertip against his mask, "Your smile as well," she revealed. "And I have not yet found my trust betrayed."

"It would be unbecoming of me to call the lady on her falsehood," Bane said evenly, his humor self deprecating. "But beauty is in the eye of the beholder, I do believe that that is how the saying goes."

"There is no falsehood in my words," Talia whispered. "And as I am the only beholder whose opinion matters, you shall have to suffer though my observations."

His hand came up to wrap around hers – drawing his touch away from his mask. For a moment there was something sad about his gaze before that too fell away.

"And I remember the first time I saw you," he revealed next, the same as she – taking what he wished from his memories and leaving the rest. "It had just rained, and much of the prison was sick with fever. Few went to the lower levels, where it was flooded, but you strayed from the bars out of curiosity for the water. You were laughing as you splashed in the pool. You laughed, and I remembered wondering when last I heard such a sound in such an awful place . . . Innocence. Laughter. Even when your mother found you - scolding you for straying, you still smiled, and I caught your eyes over your mother's shoulder . . ."

His eyes crinkled from above his mask. She imagined that he smiled. "I think I loved you from that moment," Bane revealed in a whisper. "If I did not, then, at least, you stole a part of me for yours, and I have not yet found a need to ask for it back."

She could not smile at his words. The feeling in her throat was too great for that - greater than her fears and memories and terrors from the unwaking hours. Instead she leaned in to kiss the black strap of his mask, showing with actions rather than words, and thoughts of the Pit were far from them in the warm green of the mountains as she sought to fill the night with new memories instead.

.

.

They were in the air over Hungary when Talia felt a lurch in her side, a pain in her chest. She attributed it to the turbulence, to too many hours of not sleeping.

In the east, Bruce Wayne threw off his shadow, and descended from the ruin of the mountains, unaware that the Head of the Demon was left alive with eyes still shining.

And Talia looked out of her window, and squared her jaw. Beneath the plane, a storm was raging, and she lost herself in the flare of lightning against the dark - even the sky itself not enough to hold the rise of fire away from earth.

.

.

They had been in Budapest for a month, doing reconnaissance on a corrupt politician who had long been on their 'list' of unsavory characters that the world would be better off without. The Hotel Victoria was on the Buda side of the Danube river, overlooking the Hungarian Parliament on the opposite shore. In the morning, the sun glinted off of the red-copper dome, throwing patterns in the water before them, while at night a hundred golden lights made the building appear to be cast from gold, rising like a flame from the water.

Every morning she would rise, and stand in the shadows as various spies of theirs reported to Bane. Afterwards she would dissect the information they gleaned before heading to the Parliament at the noon time hour - where she had taken up work as a secretary to do reconnaissance of her own. Then, shortly before sunset, she would return back to the hotel room, and continue working on her plans long into the night. It was a slow mission, a tedious mission, but if and when they succeeded, their actions would greatly serve the country.

That current day, though, she found her limits reached for just how much inane chatter she could withstand in one day. She was taking off her heeled shoes before she even completely opened up the door to her suite, curses from three languages rolling off of her tongue as she thought about a dozen or so creative ways to remove from her 'boss' a rather valued asset of his anatomy.

But as soon as she passed the threshold, her muttering fell silent. She became still.

Instantly, she dropped her handbag, the bag making only a whisper of sound as it hit the floor. Glad that her feet were bare, she slipped forward, the sensible indigo material of her skirt swishing as she walked . . .

. . . only to have the adrenaline in her chest spike – sensing not the immanent urge to attack, but rather the stone like sense of apprehension settle in her veins when she saw that her intruder was quite calmly going through the small cupboards of the suite's kitchenette – no doubt looking for her stash of tea.

She glared at the shaven head and dark Tibetan robes – not given up, even when its wearer was so far from the mountains.

"Where are my men?" she asked lightly, moving past the figure in the kitchen in order to put water on for tea. She flipped open the cupboard where the tea leaves were kept at the same time, revealing what his search had not yet uncovered.

"Them, you mean?" came Ubu's falsely bright voice, gesturing to the side where poor Jacopo and Mikhail were fast asleep on the thick rug by the settee. Needles glinted from their neck - no doubt that toxin from the Philippines that she remembered Ubu being so fond of using. His tone chided - he knew that she had seen them.

"As much as I appreciate you drugging my men," Talia said pleasantly, as if remarking on the weather beyond. "I must ask that you leave a message and take an appointment next time - like everyone else."

"And you would have responded to such a summons?" Ubu chided. "You, the great _Lady of Assassins_, as your ring of toy soldiers call you now?"

Talia's fingers tapped against the ceramic sides of the mugs as she pulled the set together, as if she were playing the well bred lady host to some long beloved acquaintance.

"I may have surprised you," Talia said easily, her voice still as smooth as river stones. She arched a brow as she turned back to the assassin, a challenge held in the glance.

"That I believe," Ubu said, his voice softening.

"Here," Talia inclined her head, gesturing to the ring of couches. "Take a seat? And I shall hear what you have to say."

Ubu smiled slightly at her hospitality, sitting on the couch just to the right of her downed guards. Mentally, she reminded herself to slip the antidote into their tea that would take away the headache that their current slumber would leave them with when they awakened.

Then again, Talia reflected, if anyone had been able to slip past their watch – Ubu included – perhaps the headache would be of a fitting punishment. She didn't care to think about what Bane's reaction would be when he found that there was such a slip in the shield of her defense.

She took a seat across from Ubu, crossing her legs elegantly at her ankles and folding her hands primly in her lap. Her hair was still pulled back primly, and her feet were bare but for her stockings, her heeled shoes still forgotten somewhere by the door.

And Ubu's eyes softened upon the sight of her as he took in the differences to her countenance – the added curvature to her figure, the thinner planes of her face, the darker cast of her eyes.

"How many years has it been, child?" Ubu asked then, knowing the answer but asking it anyway. There was a warm note in his voice, never hiding that she had been amongst his favourites in that bygone time in the mountains. "Six years?"

"Nearly seven, I think," Talia corrected vaguely, though she knew the distance down to the month, week even.

"Ah," Ubu's voice was wistful. "How time flies."

"Indeed." Talia's voice was crisp.

"But you have kept busy, or so I've heard," Ubu raised a brow.

Talia rolled her shoulders, brushing an imagined piece of lint from the knee of her skirt. "One must find ways to pass the time."

"And you have passed it more fruitfully than most," Ubu commented. "Where was it . . . That business in Marrakesh? That was your work, was it not?"

"Casablanca," Talia corrected, her lips drawing back from her teeth as she spoke.

"Shenyang?" Ubu looked thoughtful, rubbing at his chin as if to aid his memory. "That was you as well?"

"There was an arms dealer there that was particularly unsavory," Talia answered vaguely. "Yes, it does strike the memory."

"The nasty business in that African port . . . Dakar, was it?" Ubu continued. "You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Connected to the one in Port Elizabeth," Talia said thinly. "And Durban."

Ubu grinned, remembering. "Riga?" he asked next.

"And Jūrmala too," Talia confirmed.

"The prostitution ring in Zagreb?" Ubu asked. "It seemed like a step back for your might at the time."

Talia locked her jaw. "Children are always worth the detour."

"Then I know Kuching was your work," Ubu nodded his head. There was a dark satisfaction about his voice. "And Nah Trang as well?"

Talia made a fist, where she bore a thin scar about her palm, over her wrist. Ubu looked down, and saw the faint line of angry flesh. Nah Trang was recent, and she would carry the mark of the Chinese coast with her for the years to come. "Nah Trang as well," she echoed.

"And Algiers?" Ubu continued, his eyes still lingering on her scared skin.

"A story told to scare the new recruits," Talia admitted wryly. "I cannot claim to every part of the tale as truth."

"As I assume Tunis is, then?" Ubu snorted.

"No," Talia differed from him. "Every word of that particular tale is the truth." Her grin turned sharp, a hunting shape. "I cannot make up a story like that."

"Though if one were to believe in stories, Pyongyang would be the greatest tale to tell," and there Ubu's voice sobered. There was something pregnant in the air.

And Talia hesitated, considering just how best to answer. "We have men in place. But it is a long term project. I don't see action being taken there until late next year, by my timetable."

Ubu inclined his head. "Long has your father's gaze been turned in that direction," he admitted. "And it was one of our next larger targets. Not on par with Rome or Constantinople, of course, but one of the more serious threats to this world at large that would have the hand of the League touching its fate within the last ten years."

Talia raised a brow. "Then what drew his gaze away?" she questioned boldly. "Has a different Rome caught his attention?"

Ubu's eyes glinted, letting her see his answer, though she knew he would answer her not outright. "You may say that. A Rome of a sorts is what we aim our sword at, but it is not my place to tell you. You would have to ask your father himself."

Talia snorted, an unamused sound. "You have come very far, old friend, if you only wished to confirm what my father's spies have told you as fact. And I do have things calling upon my time. So -" she waved her hand, gesturing. She waited for him to continue.

Ubu sighed, drawing his breath deep from his lungs. His mouth worked, as if he were unsure how to shape his tongue around the words he wished to say. Talia leaned forward expectantly, not allowing him to move from the weight of her gaze, when -

- beyond them, the tea kettle whistled, announcing the boil of the water within.

Talia sighed, still holding Ubu's gaze pointedly as she rose to her feet.

"Do not think yourself free, my friend," she rolled her eyes as she moved into the small kitchenette. Her gaze was still on Ubu as she measured the tea leaves and added them to the boiling water, before taking the whole set into the low slung coffee table between the sofas. "Now," she asked, taking her seat once more. "Does my father know you are here?" she asked.

"In a way," Ubu avoided the question outright.

"That is not an answer," Talia returned, a brow raised. She taped a single nail over the side of the delicate china cup. "Now, does my father know you are here?"

Ubu paused, and a flicker of emotion in his gaze made her reconsider her question. There was concern there, she easily read. Concern and compassion, and . . . something she could not name. The cold flame at the core of her flickered. The flames licked at her lungs.

"He was not in any condition to know of my movements when I departed," Ubu replied carefully.

And Talia sat up straighter. Her breath held in her mouth, and it was not fear in the deep parts of her – _it was not_.

Ubu exhaled, seeing the question in her eyes. He waved his hand, brushing her concerns away. "He lives," he said simply, and Talia felt her breath again fill her lungs. Ra's al-Ghul, terrible head of the demon, undying in name but mortal in body . . . She tried to wrap her mind around the idea of his death, and found that it was a thought she could not process; as foreign as asking the skies not to rain or the tides not to flow was to ask Ra's al-Ghul to sunder his spirit from his flesh . . .

But Henri Ducard was a man. Her fingers were white, bloodless, as she went to pour the tea, mechanical in her motions as she passed first Ubu his own cup before working on her own. Though it had been years, she knew how he liked his sweetened with milk and honey, she doubted his tastes had changed. She drank hers black, strong against her tongue. The heat burned her palms through the thin china, but she noticed the sensation but little.

She asked no further questions, and only a moment passed before Ubu continued. "He was in a coma when I left, though Cain tells me he shall awaken any day now. He had a blow to the head that harmed him – the rest of his injuries are of bones and flesh and shall heal well enough."

She bit her tongue. The taste of copper filled her mouth. "Was he away from the monastery when it happened?"

"No," Ubu shook his head. "The monastery is no more. It burned."

And that lanced through her, nearly as violent as Ubu's news about her father's health. She had never known home in sense of one place, one hearth to always return to, but she had known love for the mountains and her place in them. They had nurtured her as father and mother both, playing witness to both her own growth and the growth of her relationship with Bane, as well. They were as indestructible as her father in her mind.

"We were attacked?" she asked numbly.

Ubu shook his head. "It was the work of one man, from within."

At that Talia's eyes snapped up, finding Ubu's with cold purpose. "An infiltrators?"

"No," Ubu said. "A Shadow – one of our own. A man your father took under his wing, but who had not the strength for our ways in the end. He was a disappointment."

Talia felt fire lick through her veins, hot where normally such a flame was cold. _Treason, betrayal_, the thought swirled in her mind like poison through a wound. She sipped at her tea to calm herself. Her teeth bit at the cup.

"And he was caught?" she asked.

"No," Ubu shook his head. "He escaped."

"And this," Talia asked. "My father, you said he threw aside his plans for this one new. Was this man in any way connected."

"And, for that, I need for you to speak to your father. It is not a story I can tell."

Talia sighed, frustrated. She could not keep her fingers still as they danced around the sides of her cup. Outside the river sloshed in its cradle, and she could hear voices from the streets. The urge to rise then, to _move_, kindled in her, though she knew not where to go.

"You came to fetch me then?" Talia said. She did not ask.

Ubu shook his head. "I came to tell you what you deserved to hear. You are still the Demonhead's heir, and this . . . this was very close. I have a warning in my heart for the days ahead, and I wish for you and your father to mend your breach before it is too late for such things to be fixed . . . but it is not my place. Either you or he must take that step, and I am here only so the balance of knowledge is equal between you two. After all," the assassin laughed tonelessly. "Were some harm to befall you, your father would know before even your own men."

Talia felt her lips draw back at that, but said nothing.

"My father," she said carefully, tying iron bonds about her emotions and drawing them down beneath her heart. Her eyes turned cold then. Her restless hands stilled. "Made his feelings upon my presence . . . upon _his_ presence quite clear. And I am to return now like a prodigal child? Am I to seek forgiveness?"

"No, child," Ubu shook his head, sighing softly. "You are to allow your father to do so."

And Talia blinked, the simple words threatening to ensnare something deep within her. It was a dangerous feeling, that hope – more vile and unkind than any prison or torture, and that was a bitter taste Talia knew well against her tongue.

"Your father is a proud man. But he is mortal for his immortal name, and his decisions are not infallible. His heart is not stone," Ubu said next, holding her eyes carefully - reading the thoughts that flickered there like a traveler would read a map. "I cannot guarantee the welcome that you . . . or yours would receive. I wished only to inform you of that which had occurred . . . not wanting you to hear of this when it was past and too late to take action . . . one way or the other."

He stood, laying a heavy hand on her shoulder as he left. "Long have I watched you over the years, child, and long have I felt . . . pride over the course you have carved in life. I would hate for you to burden your soul with more than it already bears."

His touch lingered, and Talia did not move away from him. She did not meet his gaze, and he did not try to force her. Instead he was a boulder before her – a strength.

And she exhaled, finally reaching up to cover his hand with her own.

"I thank-you, Ubu, for telling you this," she said softly, and in that, at least, her voice was sincere.

"I leave tomorrow, at noon," Ubu said gently. "You have until then to make your decision."

He squeezed her shoulder, and his hand fell away. She did not watch him depart, her eyes slipping to look out the window – to the east beyond.

Finally, she convinced herself to stand, and she picked up the tea set with numb fingers, the mundane work giving her mind time to process – time to think.

She set the china down by the sink and cleaned it, before putting away the set, before moving to the window beyond to look out into the east – knowing that somewhere, far beyond in the night, the mountains stood tall and the Head of the Demon laid felled by one of his own Shadows – a brother of the night who should have succored that which had given him purpose and life, her brother in training and arms who should have welcomed . . . should have _loved_ the approval that Ra's al-Ghul so freely gave him.

Talia stood still there for a long time to come, her hands fists upon the windowsill, unmoving as the sun sat beyond the horizon and the day turned to night.

* * *

**Parting Notes:**

**Real World Events**: When making up 'scenarios' for Talia and her men to fight with, I picked and choosed from things going on around the world - but nothing here is supposed to reflect real events or opinions. For example, there are problems with mining in Armenia, but child labor in mines is something I gleaned from an online article from Mongolia - everything here is artistic liberty and amateur research. :)

**Barsad's First Name**: Barsad is based on the character John Barsad from _'A Tale of Two Cities'_, so for his first name I gave him the name Ivan - the Russian equivalent for John. I hope you enjoyed that little throwback. In the end, I enjoyed writing his character as much as I enjoyed writing Ubu's character.

**League of Assassins**: Was the original name of the League of Shadows in the Batman comics - so it seemed a fitting surname for Talia's Brotherhood here.

And then, for those of you wondering, _holy heck, but when will you update again?, _I am sorry to say that it will be at least be another month before I update. We are moving into the heighth of the spring, and as a full time landscaper, my time is ridiculously booked this time of year - when I normally get nothing done but for drabbles and vignettes. But, this story _will_ be finished, no matter what, and I thank you all for your patience in advance. It means the world to me. :)


End file.
